No r/a waste facility in Oz?

["A. Hancock" <a.hancock@s1.cxwms.ac.uk>]

Stuart Prosser wrote:
> 
> An added challenge is that there is no waste facility in Australia which
> will accept radioactive material!
> 
-------------------

Stuart

As your note is dated 2 April I take it that this is not a spoof.  

Although I'm not being of any constructive help to you. I would be
interested to know how you therefore get rid of your low level waste in
Oz from Universities, hospitals etc.

Do you incinerate it all, macerate it? Are there no controlled landfill
sites, or is all this waste stored somewhere to be tomorrows problem.

In the UK very low level waste from hospitals, universities etc.
(non-clinical) is allowed to be disposed of in household rubbish,
therefore it goes to landfill. 

Most of the higher activity low level waste is incinerated in various
authorised incinerators dotted around the country. This is good business
as the minimum cost at the present time, charged by the waste companies
is >#10/MBq (& in some cases much greater!).

We recently had a year and a halfs worth of Bactec bottles burnt (only
about 50 x 20litre bins full) and the charge was in excess of #10k - for
those who don't know these are small pathology sample bottles each
containing <1MBq of C-14. The irony is that the contents of these
bottles could legally have been discarded to drains down a sink at no
cost. But no one wanted to do this! (test done on HIV+ patients although
bottles subsequently autoclaved).

Regards

Andy Hancock
Charing Cross Hospital
London UK
a.hancock@cxwms.ac.uk