Lack of international consensus on the disposition and storage of disused sealed sources

A lower-activity analogue of the trans-national problem of spent fuel management and disposal is the global problem of radioactive sealed source [source: The IAEA definition of a sealed source is “Radioactive material that is permanently sealed in a capsule or closely bonded and in a solid form.” Taken from glossary of Nuclear Waste Data Management found at http://www-ewmdb.iaea.org/showhelp.asp?Topic=8-1-1.] disposal. Sources are found in almost every country in the world because of their beneficial medical and commercial or industrial applications. Some of the isotopes used have short half-lives—iridium-192 (Ir-192), 73.8 days—while others have very long half-lives—americium-241 (Am-241), 432 years or plutonium-239 (Pu-239), 24,130 years. It is critically important, particularly for longer-lived isotopes, to find final disposition pathways. Lack of a permanent disposition pathway such as recycling or irretrievable disposal creates numerous problems, including the potential loss of regulatory control, which increases the risk of inadvertent or deliberate misuse of the material.The misuse of radioactive materials has the potential for substantial public health and economic damage. Disused sources also pose an inherent risk to the end-users from a liability, safety, and public health perspectives. This paper examines various disposition pathways employed by several key source manufacturing or possessing nation-states for disused sources. Examples of source disposition pathways include long-term storage, deep geological disposal, borehole disposal and shallow land burial. The Off-Site Source Recovery Project (OSRP), part of the office of Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), acts as an intermediary in the recovery and ultimate disposition of US origin sealed radiological materials. Several concepts that could help mitigate the challenge of a lack of long-term disposition options for sources are available, but these tools have not yet been applied by most nation-states. For example, regional consolidation and repatriation of sources to the country of manufacture would ease or eliminate the need for in situ disposal or storage in a number of developing nation-states.