Radioactive waste is waste resulting from practices involving radioactive substances, which is discharged into the environment from nuclear licensed sites and non-nuclear operators such as universities and hospitals.
Discharges may be in the form of gases, mists and dusts or liquids. Site operators are required to meet authorised discharge limits.
All radioactive discharges in the UK are regulated under the Radioactive Substances Act 1993. This ensures that radioactivity discharged remains well within internationally agreed levels designed to protect both human health and the environment.
Such regulation is carried out by the Environment Agency (EA) in England and Wales, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) in Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency in Northern Ireland.
EA, SEPA and the Department of Health (advised by the Food Standards Agency) conduct regular surveys of the UK terrestrial and marine environments. These continue to show that discharges are within the appropriate limits.
UK Strategy for Radioactive Discharges
The UK Strategy for Radioactive discharges aims, in part, to meet the UK’s obligations under the OSPAR Radioactive Substances Strategy, relating to progressive and substantial reductions in radioactive discharges. The objective of the OSPAR Strategy is to prevent pollution of the maritime area, covered by the OSPAR Convention (Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic), from ionising radiation.
In particular, the OSPAR objective for 2020 is to reduce discharges to levels where the additional concentrations in the marine environment above historic levels, resulting from such discharges, are close to zero.
The first UK Strategy for Radioactive Discharges 2001-2020 was published in July 2002.
A revised UK Strategy for radioactive discharges was published in 2009.