Radioactive waste management: exploratory survey among Rio de Janeiro state university students

Social approval is a fundamental part of the site selection process of a radioactive waste repository. Such approval requires the involvement of the local community in the decision-making process and is deemed essential to the success of an enterprise of this kind. A major problem when it comes to nuclear energy is the poor knowledge on the issue among the general population. For effective participation in the decision-making process, the community of the candidate site should be well informed on nuclear issues, because efficient community interaction depends on the level of knowledge of their citizens on the subject. One way to identify this level of knowledge is through opinion polls on attitudes and beliefs regarding the use of nuclear energy and on radioactive waste. In the European Union research is carried out periodically seeking to know people's opinion about their participation in the decision-making process. In order to assess in a preliminary way the attitude on this matter of university students of the state of Rio de Janeiro, the research method used in the European Union was adapted and subsequently applied to a sample of 200 students from public and private universities within the state. The results indicate that the majority of respondents, though possessing little information on nuclear issues, would like to participate in the decision-making process for site selection of a low and intermediate level radioactive waste repository, if that repository was to be built close to their living area. The collected data also identifies the sources of information that are considered trustworthy by the surveyed sample. Although exploratory, this research provides guidelines for future work to be developed within the scope of the site selection for a radioactive waste repository in Brazil. (author)