subject: Radioactive Waste [print this page] If you work in industry, you will no doubt have at least a passing familiarity with waste disposal and waste management. Even the offices of corporations produce enough ordinary paper to require a large industrial shredder. For a lot of those who have never dealt with waste management, the name conjures ideas of toxic waste, as though in order to justify needing managing, the waste must be unusual or dangerous. In reality, the problem is simply one of scale. For nearly all industries, the actual content of industrial waste is fairly benign plastics and metals specific to the industry as well as a lot of ordinary household waste produced by a legion of employers having their dinners, having a brew, having a mid-morning snack. Primarily, the management of this waste is just a case of categorizing the waste, compressing it using an appropriate baler or compactor, and arranging the logistics of transporting each of the various waste types to their designated recycling or destruction facility, all while staying on the right side of any relevant government regulations.
What you might find very surprising, is that the process for dealing with actual radioactive waste is not actually very different. Ordinary waste isnt terribly healthy you wouldnt want to eat it, or go for a swim in it, or get it on your clothes, even if it contained nothing more sinister than a banana peel in there. Radioactive waste however, can do your body damage at a molecular level simply through proximity.
In a nutshell, radiation in this context is actually ionizing radiation. Radiation itself is an umbrella term which covers everything from the radio waves we use for communication to the visual spectrum we use to see, to ordinary heat all completely benign. Ionizing radiation is not benign; it has the effect of dislodging electrons from the atoms in your body. This creates an instability the atom is now missing an electron and wants it back. This makes the atom, which in your body is highly likely to be a stable, single piece in a hugely complicated tapestry of complicated molecules, more reactive and volatile, making it more likely to react with anything around it if it means it can replace its lost electron, breaking chemical bonds that should be there and forming new ones where there shouldnt. Obviously this is a simplified explanation, but the end result of a chain reaction like this is easy to imagine molecular corruption of your bodys cells.
Dry radioactive wastes which can be burnt are sent to an incinerator, and the radioactive ash they produce is discharged into a storage drum. That dry waste which cannot be burned is simply placed in a drum as is. Both types of waste are then sent to waste compactors to reduce the volume occupied by the waste and to decrease shipping and disposal costs. The compressed waste is then shipped to a relevant facility if the waste can be treated, re-purposed, studied or otherwise usefully dealt with, it is taken to a treatment facility. Otherwise it is shipped to be buried, exactly like a landfill. This is a functionally identical process to any other type of waste, although clearly a few parameters must be adhered to avoid spreading contamination, or allowing the waste to affect the humans working with it.
