The UK now has enough radioactive waste to fill the Royal Albert Hall five times over. There’s still no safe way to deal with it. Nuclear wastes are stored at over 30 sites around the UK. The map on the right shows the current locations of radioactive wastes. (Small volumes of waste less than 1,000 cubic metres are not shown).

On average people in the UK live about 26 miles from the nearest site with high and intermediate level waste, or low level radioactive waste that is unsuitable for disposal at the UK's existing facility at Drigg.

CoRWM is the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management. They are an independent body appointed by Government Ministers in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This body is tasked with reviewing the options for managing the UK's existing amount of radioactive waste and recommend the option, or combination of options, that can provide a long-term (thousands of years into the future) solution, which protects both people and the environment.

In the report the CoRWM presented to the government last year they stressed the fact that there is still no 100% safe method to permanently store nuclear waste. The committee members have been asked, by the government, to come up with recommendations to a problem that might not have any solution (we can’t stop natural disasters and the far future is uncertain). Their educated guess recommended to bury the waste in geologicaly safe sites. However, no one can guarantee that this highly radioactive waste won’t leak back into the environment, contaminating water supplies and the food chain, causing unimaginable damage to the environment and our lives.

Allowing ten new reactors to be built, as it is currently is on the drawing table, would add threefold to the amount of highly radioactive waste we already have to deal with. This waste will remain dangerous for up to hundreds of thousands of years: a truly outrageous legacy to leave for many generations to come.

“The dilemma of whether to take action now (start the process of disposal, recognising that flexibility will gradually decline) or avoid making a final decision (by continuing interim storage allowing flexibility and later choices but also imposing burdens) is also present in the context of cultural time, the time-scale of human perception and concern.”

“The management of radioactive wastes is a problem that extends into the far future. Over such long time-scales, dealing with uncertainties becomes a central issue. The problem that faced CoRWM may be conceived as one of managing the waste in the face of uncertainties. In reaching its recommendations, CoRWM, in conjunction with experts and stakeholders, has had to assess the importance of different forms of uncertainty at different times in the future. This assessment has focussed on the fundamental choice that has to be made between options relating to continuing storage of wastes and options which favour geological disposal.”

“The future is inherently unpredictable and uncertain. Policy decisions need to be robust against reasonably foreseeable contingencies. CoRWM considers that uncertainties are a central issue in the long-term management of wastes that will remain significantly radioactive over many thousands of years. It believes that, from the outset, relevant uncertainties need to be identified and, as far as possible, managed.”

“CoRWM concluded that, within the context of present knowledge, it had sufficient confidence in geological disposal as the best method for long-term management, and the relevant regulators believe that they could, in principle, accept a long-term safety case. But CoRWM’s recommendations needed to take account of the uncertainties surrounding disposal. Therefore, the recommendations indicate the need for continuing research on geological disposal and storage to reduce uncertainties and a commitment to leaving open - until repository closure – the possibility of alternative management options becoming available. These and other caveats resulted in a set of interconnected proposals leading to geological disposal as the end-point.”

“A robust programme of interim storage must play an integral part in the long-term management strategy. The uncertainties surrounding the implementation of geological disposal, including social and ethical concerns, lead CoRWM to recommend a continued commitment to the safe and secure management of wastes that is robust against the risk of delay or failure in the repository programme. Due regard should bepaid to: i. reviewing and ensuring security, particularly against terrorist attacks; ii. ensuring the longevity of the stores themselves; iii. prompt immobilisation of waste leading to passively safe waste forms; iv. minimising the need for re-packaging of the wastes; v. the implications for transport of wastes.”

For a copy of the CoRWM full report click here...
For a copy of the CoRWM recommendations click here…