Exemption criteria or clearance levels have been used in one way or another by all regulatory agencies concerned with risk management. This is the case also for radiological risk, for which, exemption and clearance policies are fully available options derived from a strict and responsible application of the existing radiation protection system. The matter is now well under regulatory control, and it is precisely for this reason that regulators might consider the risks implied to be too small to justify the use of extra resources for their control, so as to allow other more beneficial, allocations for them. It is clear that there is a need to define derived, practically applicable, criteria for clearance at the international level. More than just values, what is needed is a clear and well defined technical and administrative framework to guide the responsible management of residual materials with very low level radionuclide content, by using clearance. In this respect, it is strongly recommended that whatever effort may be necessary be made to establish a consistent but pragmatic approach for exemption and clearance. Many positive goals would be achieved by using the same derived values, at least for the unconditional application of clearance. A basic component of any responsible policy on clearance is the guarantee that the cleared materials comply with the defined criteria. In this sense, measurements of radioactivity content and characterization of materials are, and will continue to be, a key issue. It should be recognized that public acceptance may be a critical constraint in the implementation of a general clearance policy, and should be an important consideration in any proposed approach. It may be helpful to describe the clearance policy as a consequence of resource optimization analysis, considering that the risks implied by this policy have too low priority to be further regulated, rather than presenting those risks as having an acceptably low level.
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