Radioactive waste White Paper revives high-level waste dump

A long-abandoned programme to identify a permanent site for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste has been revived by the Government's White Paper on radioactive waste management.1 Plans to postpone the Nirex underground repository for low- and intermediate-level wastes have been dropped - allowing cautious official approval for British Nuclear Fuels' scheme to retain overseas customers' reprocessing wastes for disposal in the UK. But the Government has abandoned a controversial plan to encourage disposal of low-level waste from the nuclear industry in conventional landfills.