nuclear waste management

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the set of technical, regulatory, and institutional processes used to handle, process, store, transport, and ultimately dispose of radioactive waste materials generated by nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons programmes, medical uses of radioisotopes, and industrial applications; nuclear waste is categorised by activity level into low-level waste including contaminated tools and protective clothing, intermediate-level waste including reactor components and reprocessing residues, and high-level waste including spent nuclear fuel and vitrified waste from reprocessing, which remains highly radioactive and thermally hot for thousands of years; deep geological repositories in stable rock formations are the internationally agreed approach for final disposal of high-level nuclear waste, though no country has yet opened a fully operational repository