§ Mr. Gordon Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Energy how much nuclear waste has been imported from other countries into the United Kingdom for reprocessing in each year since 1970; what was the origin, by country, of each year's imports; and for each year, how much of the waste, once reprocessed, was returned to the country of origin.
§ Mr. John MooreSpent irradiated fuel from foreign nuclear reactors is imported into the United Kingdom prior to its reprocessing at British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) plant at Sellafield. No radioactive waste separate from irradiated fuel is imported into the United Kingdom. Uranium and plutonium are recovered from the fuel and a relatively small volume (in comparison to that of the original fuel) of radioactive waste is separated.
Since 1970 approximately 1,000 tonnes of uranium in the form of irradiated magnox fuel have been imported from Italy and Japan, and approximately 600 tonnes of uranium in the form of irradiated oxide fuel have been imported from Italy, Japan, the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium. All reprocessing contracts concluded by BNFL since 1976 contain an option enabling the company to return this radioactive waste to the customer country.
However, no wastes have yet been returned to these countries because the vitrification plant to convert the highly active liquid wastes into glass blocks has not yet been commissioned. Under the contracts, the wastes may be returned up to 25 years after the spent fuel has been received in this country.