ABSTRACT
Radioactive waste may be defined as solid, liquid, or gaseous material of negligible economic value containing radionuclides in excess of threshold quantities. High level wastes (HLW) are produced in the first cycle of reprocessing spent nuclear material and are strongly radioactive. Intermediate level wastes (ILW) can be divided into short lived, with half lives of twenty years or less, and long lived, in which the half lives of some constituents may be thousands of years. Low level wastes (LLW) contain less than 4 GBq/ton of alpha emitters and less than 12 GBq/ton of beta and gamma emitters. Very low level waste (VLLW) contains activity concentrations less than 0.4 MBq/ton.
