Clearance levels derived by European Commission

The concept of clearance was introduced by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1996 and is very useful for the management of very low-level solid materials generating from the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Therefore, the European Commission (EC) derived the specific clearance levels for metals, buildings and building rubble in Radiation Protection 89 and 113, respectively. The EC also derived the general clearance levels for all solid materials generating from the regulated facilities in Radiation Protection 122. The derived clearance levels are recommended to the member countries of the EC. Comparing the clearance levels of Japan with the unrounded levels of the EC, the differences of levels are small. The biggest difference is found in Fe-55 and the EC's clearance level is about one fifth of Japanese clearance level. The reason is the EC considered the direct ingestion of cleared building rubble by children and used the conservative ingestion rate of it. The EC's discussions related to the clearance levels are very useful for Japan to derive our own clearance levels and to clear materials from regulatory control. (author)