Australia has recently started to report data into the NEWMDB. Australia does not have an active nuclear programme, although they operate several research reactors, have some of the world's largest uranium deposits, and actively mine and export uranium for nuclear fuel.
Australia is a contracting party to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management. Their National Report to the Second Review Meeting is accessible to the public and can be downloaded from the link provided above.
The data provided for 2005 are taken from this report and were input by IAEA. For the classification of Australian radioactive waste, regulators agreed that the IAEA classification system as specified in Safety Guide 111-G-1.1 was appropriate for Australia with some modification for bulk waste together with supporting documentation, particularly in relation to the thresholds between classification levels.
However, Australia does not have a uniform definition of waste categories. Most jurisdictions do not specifically define or categorize radioactive waste in legislation. In practice in most jurisdictions, any sealed or unsealed material containing radionuclides at levels above exemption and for which no further use is envisaged is regarded as radioactive waste. In most cases wastes are categorized, for management purposes, as long-lived or short-lived, liquid or solid, and sealed or unsealed. Further categorization is based on IAEA recommendations (New South Wales, Northern Territory), nuclide (Queensland), or, for small quantities of solid waste, on the Code of Practice for the Disposal of Radioactive Wastes by the User (NHMRC, 1985). Categorization is also based on the Code of Practice for the Near-Surface Disposal of Radioactive Waste in Australia (NHMRC, 1992). Between them these codes define waste that can be disposed of at urban landfill and therefore what needs to go to a near surface disposal facility.
Introduction
Regulators
