1. RADIOACTIVE WASTE
MANAGEMENT
To protect the people and
environment

2. Generation
 Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive
material.
 Various operations of the nuclear fuel cycle.
 Mining
 nuclear power generation
 various processes in industry, defense, medicine
 scientific research

3. Types
Very low level waste (VLLW)
Low-level waste (LLW)
Intermediate-level waste (ILW)
High-level waste (HLW)

5. Very low level waste (VLLW)
 consists mainly of demolished material (such as
concrete, plaster, bricks, metal, valves, piping etc.)
produced during dismantling operations on
nuclear industrial sites.
 Naturally-Occurring Radioactive Materials
(NORM)
 Not harmful to humans or environment
 recycling or using as byproducts

6. Low-level waste (LLW)
 electricity generation
 diagnosis and treatment of disease
 medical research
 testing of new pharmaceuticals
 nondestructive testing of airplanes and bridges
 smoke detectors
 hardening of materials like hardwood flooring
 breeding of new varieties of seed with higher crop yields
 eradication of insect pests
 food preservation.

7. Low-level waste (LLW)
 short-lived radioactivity
 suitable for shallow land burial

8. Low-level waste (LLW)
Low-level waste
storage pit at the
Nevada National
Security Site.

9. Intermediate-level waste (ILW)
 Contains higher amounts of radioactivity and
some requires shielding.
 Resins
 Chemical sludges
 Metal fuel cladding

10. Intermediate-level waste (ILW)
Some low-level liquid wastes from
reprocessing plants are discharged
to the sea
Include radionuclides technetium-
99.

11. High level waste(HLW)
 Arises from the 'burning' of uranium fuel in a
nuclear reactor.
 Produced during reprocessing of used fuel.

12. Used nuclear fuel
Most used fuel from nuclear power plants is stored in
steel-lined concrete pools filled with water, or in airtight
steel or concrete-and-steel containers

13. Storage pond for used fuel at
the Thermal Oxide
Reprocessing Plant at the
UK's Sellafield site

14. POND
 7-12 metres deep
 The multiple racks are made of metal with
neutron absorbers incorporated in it
 The circulating water both shields and cools
the fuel
 Made of thick reinforced concrete with steel
liners

15. Deep geological disposal
A key idea was that long-term
disposal would be best carried out by
identifying suitable sites at which the
waste could be buried, a process
called deep geological disposal.
It must be located at least 200 m
below the ground surface to avoid
the effects of erosion and human

16. Recycle:
 Direct disposal (after storage) to a geological repository.
It takes 300,000 years
 Aqueous reprocessing to remove only uranium and
plutonium. It take 9000 years.
 Advanced electrometallurgical reprocessing which
removes uranium, plutonium and minor actinides
together for recycling in a fast reactor. It takes only
300years. (not commercialy available).

17. Kudankulam Nuclear power plant

18. conclusion
 Disposal of radioactive waste is a complex issue, not only
because of the nature of the waste, but also because of the
stringent regulatory structure for dealing with radioactive
waste.
 India has achieved self-reliance in the management of all
type of radioactive waste.
 An ongoing effort to upgrade technology to minimize
radioactive discharge is also on.

19. Citations

20. THANK YOU
BY Murali.E