Latvia: National framework for management of spent fuel and radioactive waste

The basis of national radioactive waste management (RWM) strategy – the Radioactive Waste Storage Concept accepted by the Cabinet of Ministers. The aim of the Concept - to stimulate the development of advanced, environmentally sound and population friendly RWM system. Latvia has no nuclear fuel, spent nuclear fuel and therefore has no intention to use reprocessing services, the spent nuclear fuel defined as the radioactive waste. This issue is incorporated also in the framework law that spent nuclear fuel may be processed as an eligible resource or intended for complete disposal without the further use thereof and treated as radioactive waste. The use of spent nuclear fuel shall not be permissible in the Republic of Latvia. Importation of spent nuclear fuel into the Republic of Latvia from other countries shall not be permissible. There is no any large scale facility or processes in which natural occurring radioactive materials are processed and are treated as radioactive waste, but there were several incidents with enhanced radioactivity of metal scrap imported from other countries for the metal smelting plant, thus minor amounts of such materials had been treated as radioactive waste. Latvia has no any military facility which generates spent nuclear fuel, currently minor amounts of radioactive waste from defence related activities. Latvia has a sole RW near-surface repository "Radons" (RADON-type, 27 km of capital Riga) foreseen for low and intermediate level short-lived waste (LILW-SL).