Nuclear Back End Webinar Series 4.7 - Developing Waste Acceptance Criteria for all stages of the waste lifecycle

To ensure safety, radioactive waste management has to be carried out in a regulated manner, aligning with nationally and internationally agreed-upon principles and standards. To achieve this, organizational and administrative arrangements must be in place, clearly defining the competencies and responsibilities of the responsible institutions involved. Radioactive waste management encompasses all administrative and operational activities related to the generation, pre-treatment, treatment, conditioning, transportation, storage, and disposal of various types of waste.Often, different organizations perform various steps in the radioactive waste management process. Consequently, as the waste transitions from one organization to the next, the responsibility for safety, liability, and associated risks also shifts. Such multi-party arrangements require meticulous attention to interfaces. In the context of radioactive waste management, this involves the development and documentation of waste acceptance criteria (WAC) as the principal means of ensuring clear interfaces. WAC aims to guarantee that activities performed in one waste management step (e.g., waste conditioning) do not hinder any anticipated and necessary activities in subsequent waste management steps, such as waste storage or disposal. The key entities in radioactive waste management include the waste generator, the predisposal operator, the disposal operator, and the regulatory body; the interfaces between these entities are facilitated through the use of WAC.This webinar will discuss the key elements in developing WAC, challenges in implementing them, as well as practical approaches in applying WAC in both predisposal and disposal phases.