§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he intends to make available for public scrutiny, a permanent register of radioactive disposals which includes the classification of radioactive waste in terms of the degree of risk involved; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. WaldegraveThe Government have accepted the broad thrust of the report of the inter-departmental working party of officials on "Public Access to Environmental Information". (Pollution Paper No. 23 (1986)). One of the recommendations of that working party was that powers should be sought, by legislation, to require public registers to be kept setting out information relating to certificates issued under the Radioactive Substances Act 1960 for disposal of radioactive waste. The Government intend to bring forward proposals on these lines after consultation with those most closely involved. The precise content of the register has yet to be determined.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has on the problems the United States of America nuclear dumping sites have faced, with special references to the detection of radionuclides beyond the site boundaries.
§ Mr. WaldegraveThe officers of my Department are kept informed about relevant developments in the United States of America and elsewhere through personal contacts, attending conferences, articles in the technical press and papers in learned scientific journals.
I shall be visiting the radioactive waste disposal site at Barnwell, South Carolina on a forthcoming visit to the USA and Canada.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when the concept intermediate level 232W waste was first used by the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive and his Department; how is it defined: and if the definition of low level waste will now be expanded.
§ Mr. WaldegraveThe concept of intermediate-level waste has been well established for many years; but a precise agreed definition came with the adoption by the Government, the waste producers and NIREX of the definition recommended by the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee in its fifth annual report in June 1984. This is that intermediate-level waste is waste with radioactivity exceeding the boundaries for low-level waste (4 GBq/tonne alpha or 12 GBq/tonne beta/gamma.), but which does not require heating to be taken into account in the design of storage for disposal facilities.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the maximum half-life of waste considered to be low level.
§ Mr. WaldegraveLow level radioactive waste is defined as that with less than 4 GBq per tonne of alpha-emitting radioactivity and less than 12 GBq per tonne of beta-gamma radioactivity. It would not be sensible to specify a maximum half-life for radioactivity in low level waste; naturally occurring trace amounts of uranium have a half-life of over four billion years and stable elements have an infinitely long half-life.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how much low level intermediate waste is produced each year by the nuclear industry.
§ Mr. WaldegraveUnited Kingdom reactors were expected to produce about 640 cubic metres of intermediate level waste and 5,300 cubic metres of low level radioactive waste in 1985. Fuel reprocessing operations in the same year were expected to produce about 970 cubic metres of ILW and 2,900 cubic metres of LLW.
The volume anticipated in future years are given in the "Summary report on the 1985 United Kingdom Radioactive Waste Inventory" (Report No.: DOE/RW/ 85–196).
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends the Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive to be responsible for intermediate and high level nuclear waste.
§ Mr. WaldegraveUK NIREX Ltd. is already responsible for the disposal of intermediate-level radioactive waste. The Environment Select Committee report recommended that it should have similar responsibility for heat generating waste also: this recommendation is being considered.