Stronger Efforts are Needed to Improve the Control of Radioactive Sources: An IAEA Perspective - 8395

摘要

High activity radioactive sources provide great benefit to humanity through their utilization in agriculture, industry, medicine, research and education, and the vast majority is used in well-controlled environments. None-the-less, control has been lost over a small fraction of those sources resulting in accidents of which some had serious - even fatal - consequences. In order to improve the existing situation, concerted national and international efforts are needed and, to some degree, are being implemented to strengthen the safety and security of sources in use, as well as to improve the control of disused sources located at numerous facilities throughout the world. More efforts must also be made to identify, recover, and bring into control vulnerable and orphan sources. The IAEA has been involved in efforts to bring about better control of radioactive sources for many years but since the events of September 2001 the amount of effort put into this area has increased considerably. This paper highlights IAEA work in this regard. This paper also discusses in some detail the overall nature of the problem with regards to disused sources and points out how there is still much to do in both improving the existing situation and ensuring the sustainability of control over radioactive sources for the future.