![](\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2016.11\/thumbnail\/58246e8fc46188b61f8b4598.jpg\")
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New government proposals could see radioactive waste kept at the sites of old nuclear power plants and not disposed of in special dumps because it\u2019s a cheaper option.<\/p>\n
Officials claim international radiological standards would still be maintained and that sites would not be left in a dangerous state.<\/p>\n
Experts are divided on the issue, however, with some warning it\u2019s an \u201cappalling choice<\/em>\u201d and evidence of a government with no long-term plan for nuclear waste.<\/p>\n Currently radioactive material goes to the UK\u2019s only low-level waste (LLW) site at Digg, Cumbria, which is nearly full.<\/p>\n The government wants to change the process, so that waste disposal is no longer the responsibility of the Office for Nuclear Regulation.<\/p>\n It claims the changes would mean less waste is moved around the country and former nuclear power plants would be cleaned up more quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is possible that local communities may be concerned that this would mean the site being left in an unacceptable or hazardous state. This would not be the case<\/em>,\u201d the government proposal states.<\/p>\n Any changes which are inconsistent with the radiological standards of watchdog Public Health England will not go ahead, it added.<\/p>\n Some experts welcomed the proposals as a way of cutting the costs of decommissioning nuclear plants.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we continue to treat radioactivity as if it was in a different category of hazards, we perpetuate this idea that radioactivity is more dangerous [than other hazardous material], which the science doesn\u2019t back up<\/em>,\u201d said Imperial College London senior research fellow Malcolm Grimston.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if people decided to eat this stuff or set up house and live as close as they could, there would be no detectable change in the cancer rate<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n But critics argued nuclear waste is still dangerous, regardless of whether it is \u201clow level<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s another example of how much of the stuff we have and we don\u2019t really know what we\u2019re going to do with it, we\u2019re just leaving it [the LLW]. It\u2019s an appalling choice<\/em>,\u201d said Dr Paul Dorfman of University College London.<\/p>\n \u201cThe notion of the acceptability about LLW being just low level: you can say low, but this stuff is dangerous. You don\u2019t want this stuff near you<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New government proposals could see radioactive waste kept at the sites of old nuclear power plants and not disposed of in special dumps because it\u2019s a cheaper option. Officials claim international radiological standards would still be maintained and that sites would not be left in a dangerous state. Experts are divided on the issue, however, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":278431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-278430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}