Member State Experience: Georgia. Annex VII

In Georgia the nuclear and radiation sources registry contains DU containers in the following groups by their origin: legal containers (medicine and industry), historical (no longer used, from former USSR period), orphan and those from criminal activity. Legal containers are used in medicine and industry, as well as for calibration (two ⁶⁰Co teletherapy devices with DU shielding) and non‑destructive testing (NDT), mainly for pipelines (Delta‑880 devices, TechOps, Model 660), standardization and metrology in Secondary Standard Laboratories (Isotope Technologies). Some historical transport containers (former USSR) were used by oncological hospitals (without responsibilities and agreement to 'send back to manufacturer' ⁶⁰Co and DU containers). Some historical DU containers were used for NDT in former USSR activities (¹³⁷CS, ¹⁹²Ir), and other DU containers were from an old former USSR (non‑operational) scientific research reactor (for sources and irradiated samples). More than 300 orphan sources were left in Georgia following the demise of the USSR. Also left were DU containers used for ¹⁹²Ir sources (NDT use) and an abandoned radiotherapy device. There is also an example of a DU container arising from criminal activity where the DU container was being sold on the black market.