REUSING RESIDUES AND DISPOSING OF WASTE

A rich background of experience is now available worldwide in decommis sioning nuclear facilities. This experience relates to nuclear power p lants, but also to other plants of the nuclear fuel cycle; inter alia, it allows the volumes of material arising to be estimated. In princip le, it has been found that by far the larger part of the arisings can be recycled for safe reuse or disposed of by conventional techniques. The parr which must be disposed of in an orderly fashion as radioactiv e waste typically is only a few percent of the total volume. The bound ary conditions applying to the reuse of residues and to the disposal o f radioactive waste are explained in greater detail in the report. Wit h respect to the interim and repository storage requirements for radio active waste arising in the decommissioning and demolition of nuclear plants and installations, some of the main aspects of disposal of thes e waste streams in the Federal Republic of Germany are discussed ii? t he article. The arisings of radioactive waste result from the total vo lume of residue accumulating and plant components removed, which canno t be reused or treated as ordinary waste. Consequently this discussion deals with the entire volume arising and the criteria of reuse and di sposal, respectively, as ordinary waste.