Plans to safely manage medical and research waste

The Australian Government’s nuclear agency, ANSTO, will make an application to the independent nuclear regulator, ARPANSA, to vary its license for its Interim Waste Store.

The original operating license was approved in 2015, enabling the facility to hold what is called a TN-81 cask of intermediate-level radioactive waste that was safely repatriated from France in 2015.

The license variation to ARPANSA will allow ANSTO to prepare to receive a second TN-81 cask of intermediate level radioactive waste, which will to be repatriated in the 2022 financial year, in this case from the UK.

Between 75-80 per cent of the radioactive waste produced at ANSTO is directly associated with production of nuclear medicine that and every Australian is likely to need to benefit from nuclear medicine at some point in their lifetime.  

Nuclear medicine is used in the diagnosis of a variety of heart, lung and muscular skeletal conditions, as well as diagnosis and treatment of certain types of cancer.

Australia’s nuclear reactor also supports world- class research to make industries more profitable, and medical and environmental innovations.

A variety of low and intermediate level radioactive wastes are created as a result of Australia’s nuclear operations, which are managed safely with different levels of shielding and protection. 

Fuel rods that power reactors require additional controls for safe storage. Australia’s spent fuel management strategy approach is to reprocess the spent fuel rods to remove the remaining uranium which is then recycled overseas used to manufacture fuel for nuclear power plants.

This minimizes the amount of long-lived radioactive species in the resulting waste, which is encapsulated in a glass matrix and suitable for storage and final disposal.

While Australia’s nuclear program is significant, it is comparatively small, and therefore we have not developed our own spent fuel reprocessing capability, instead relying on facilities overseas.