Peculiar aspects of decommissioning waste relating to disposal - lessons learned

Waste acceptance criteria, a series of either qualitative or quantitative requirements, limit the types of radioactive waste that can be disposed of in a repository. Disposing of decommissioning waste into currently operated repositories, which, mostly, are near surface facilities, may be limited by specific activity of both short and long lived radionuclides in the waste, and other safety, technical, and formal criteria. Non-routine, possibly novel approaches may be required. Specifically, accepting decommissioning waste into a repository can require consideration of a number of factors, such as the following: - For safety purposes, knowledge of the specific activity of particular radionuclides, the chemical composition of wastes, their chemotoxicity, and other specific information defining the waste will be needed; - Typically, the dimensions and weight of solid waste items will be needed; - Administratively, an adequate legislative background and QM/QA systems will be required to deal with missing information such as that caused by the presence of old waste, an older regulatory framework and more recent revisions in recycling formalities; - The processing, storage and transport of large volumes of very low level waste and handling of untypical bulky waste will present cost concerns. Keeping this approach in mind, decommissioning wastes can be appropriately conditioned, transported and disposed of in a safe, technically and economically optimal manner. (author)