The Management of High-Level Radioactive Wastes

The terms, low-level, mediumor intermediate-level and high-level radioactive wastes are being universally used, implying different concentrations of radionuclides or radioactivity in the waste. These terms originated in the 1950's for operational purposes and generally indicated how the waste was being handled or treated and what was being done with it under the local operating conditions at a particular site rather than precisely defining radioactivity concentrations or contamination. This still holds true today with the defined and/or quantitative divisions between the three categories differing from country to country and even amongst institutions in the same country Refs [1 , 2].