Radioactive waste resulting from practices involving radioactive substances 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 ensure that the authorised discharge limits are met.
DECC has issued the UK’s revised Strategy for Radioactive Discharges
The revised UK Strategy builds on and widens the scope of the 2002 Strategy bringing all information on radioactive discharges into one place. The Strategy covers the period to 2030 and includes aerial as well as liquid discharges from operational and decommissioning activities and includes both the nuclear and non-nuclear sectors. It sets out the progress made on reducing discharges and emissions to the environment; describes, at the sectoral level, the outcomes which are expected to be achieved and by when; and sets a strategic framework for addressing radioactive discharges over the next 20 years.
The Strategy demonstrates how the UK is implementing its obligations in respect of the UK’s commitments on radioactive discharges as a Contracting Party to the OSPAR Convention and forms the UK’s national plan on how we will achieve the overall and intermediate objectives of the OSPAR Radioactive Substances Strategy. The intended effects of the UK Strategy are:
- progressive and substantial reductions in radioactive discharges taking into account any uncertainties;
- progressive reductions in concentrations of radionuclides in the marine environment from radioactive discharges such that by 2020 they add close to zero to historic levels;
- progressive reductions in human exposures to ionising radiation resulting from radioactive discharges, as a result of planned reductions in discharges; and
- delivery of the UK’s commitments to OSPAR without compromising the UK energy policy.
The Strategy also highlights the move in England and Wales from Best Practicable Means (BPM) and Best Practicable Environmental Options (BPEO) to Best Available Techniques (BAT) for the regulation of radioactive discharges. The move to BAT will deliver the equivalent level of environmental protection as BPM and BPEO and is consistent with the terminology of the environmental protection regimes of the other Contracting Parties and other regimes in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland will continue to apply BPM and BPEO.
Statutory guidance to the Environment Agency for England and Wales
Statutory guidance to the Environment Agency in England and Wales on the implementation of the UK Strategy, including the move to BAT, has now been published following Parliamentary clearance and is available below:
Statutory guidance from Scottish Ministers to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency was consulted on in October 2005, and published in February 2008. This guidance covers the same fundamental principles as those in our guidance to the Environment Agency: