Sydney and the adjacent unincorporated area, have curbside green waste pickup using green-colored, green waste containers and it will be collected by green waste disposal team.
Here’s the bottom line on nuclear waste:
it’s
incredibly toxic, incredibly dangerous, and if you’re among the 99
percent who aren’t employed by the nuclear energy industry, you don’t
want it stored anywhere near your home.
Even if you work in
nuclear energy you may not want it near your home, whether you feel free
to admit it or not. Safety measures aside, nuclear waste makes people
skittish, and that is understandable.
No one wants nuclear waste buried in their neighborhood, and that is part of the problem. But the biggest part of the problem is that such waste is produced inside nuclear energy facilities at astonishing levels—250,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel were stored onsite at nuclear power plants around the world as of the last accounting, and that number grows by the thousands of tons each and every year [1].
Why is it difficult to deal with nuclear waste safely?
The waste products produced inside nuclear reactor cores are deadly to all forms of life. When uranium is converted into energy through nuclear fission, the spent fuel rods it leaves behind are contaminated with radioactive poisons like cesium-137, iodine-131 and strontium-90, each of which emits significant quantities of ionizing radiation that can severely damage the cells of living organisms, along with their DNA (it is the latter effect that is responsible for the cancer risk associated with radiation exposure) [2].
The
radiation produced by these toxic fission byproducts can easily
penetrate a range of materials, and that means nuclear waste must be
handled remotely and with radiation-proof shielding to prevent dangerous
human exposures.
Plutonium is another byproduct of nuclear fission, and while it does not have the same penetrating qualities as cesium-137, iodine-131 and strontium-90 it is literally the deadliest substance on the face of the earth [3]. This means it, too, must be handled with extraordinary caution, and it also must be kept secure since plutonium can be used to build nuclear weapons.
Where is nuclear waste stored?
Initially, spent
nuclear fuel rods removed from nuclear reactors are stored in isolated
deep-water pools, which have walls made of reinforced concrete poured
several feet thick, with steel liners added for extra protection.
To
prevent overfilling of these pools, power plant companies will
eventually transfer nuclear waste to large, heavy, stainless-steel casks
entombed in concrete and stored above ground on power plant property.
Spent fuel rods are both radioactive and thermally hot, and they must be
left to cool off underwater for at least five years before they are
moved to dry cask storage [4].
These
storage methods are designed to last for no more than a few decades,
until a permanent underground repository can be built and
opened—assuming such a thing ever happens, which at this point seems
like a dubious proposition [5].
Effects of radioactive waste in the ocean
Between 1946 and 1993, as many as 13 countries were using the oceans of the world as a dumping ground for nuclear waste [6]. Thankfully, this activity has now been outlawed by treaty, but illegal dumping is still going on in certain locations where environmental policing is lax [7].
For a long time, ocean dumping was considered relatively safe, since the seas are so vast and their powers to dilute so advanced. But wastes will inevitably accumulate in the areas where the dumping occurs, and in those areas the risk is not minimal. Microscopic plant life that colonizes every square inch of the ocean can absorb toxic radiation and pass it up through the food chain, from fish to mammals to human beings.
What is the proper way to dispose of radioactive waste?
Human beings must be protected
from nuclear waste for as long as it maintains its ability to produce
deadly or cancer-causing levels of ionizing radiation. This means that
spent fuel rods must be kept in radiation-proof containers indefinitely,
and those who handle it must be protected by shielding, special
clothing and other measures designed to keep them safe from radioactive
exposure. Extra care must be taken if nuclear waste is transported to
offsite locations, to make sure accidents don’t happen and that any
possibility of leakage or theft.
Deep underground burial in
geologically stable locations is the best way to dispose of radioactive
waste produced by nuclear power plants. However, constructing such
repositories is expensive, time-consuming and requires political support
that as of yet has not been forthcoming.
High-Level nuclear waste disposal
Because
of its tremendous toxicity, which will make it lethal for tens of
thousands of years or longer, high-level nuclear waste is not fit for
conventional disposal. It must be stored in safe, secure locations, in
durable containers that won’t crack, leak, or be vulnerable to damage
from bombs, earthquakes, or high-powered weapons used in military or
terrorist attacks.
While cesium-137 and strontium-90 have half-lives of 30 years, meaning they lose half of their potency in that amount of time, plutonium has a half-life of more than 24,000 years (and that might be a conservative estimate) [9].
High-level nuclear waste reserves its toxic capacity far too long to
be released into the environment, which is why deep underground
entombment is considered the best long-term solution for the disposal of
these substances.
Low-Level nuclear waste disposal
Low-level
nuclear waste refers to materials that have been contaminated as a
result of secondary radioactive exposures. While they shouldn’t be
handled when they’re still “hot,” they aren’t as potent or hazardous as
the byproducts of nuclear energy production.
Hospitals, factories and private or government laboratories are frequent sources of low-level nuclear waste, which is also produced in some quantity by activities connected to the nuclear fuel cycle [10]. Depending on the extent of the contamination and the rate of radioactive decay, low-level nuclear waste may be stored onsite until it is safe for normal disposal in landfills, or it may be sent to special protective facilities that dispose of low-level waste underground.
Where does the United States store nuclear waste?
At
the present time, high-level nuclear waste produced inside nuclear
power plants in the United States is stored onsite, since there are no
centralized nuclear waste repositories anywhere in the country. In fact,
no country that relies on nuclear energy has constructed such
facilities, and only in Finland is one even under construction [11].
Proposed nuclear waste disposal sites
After
considering a number of locations, in 1987 the U.S. Congress chose
Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site for a permanent underground nuclear
waste repository [12].
The proposed
repository would have been large enough to accept waste shipped from
all of the country’s nuclear power plants, and was believed to be a safe
location because it is in the middle of the Nevada desert hundred of
miles from any large settlement.
But the project never got off the
ground. It was derailed by state lawsuits, widespread resistance from
Nevada residents and independent geological studies that suggested the
Yucca Mountain site might be more prone to volcanic activities and water
erosion than previously believed [13].
Bowing to public pressure, the Yucca Mountain site was abandoned by the Obama Administration, which called for the establishment of a commission to find a more appropriate location for the repository [14]. But no such commission has been formed, and many in Congress and the nuclear industry are still pushing the Yucca Mountain location as the most viable solution.
