This paper has discussed the issues facing many nuclear waste management organisations when dealing with problematic waste streams. Although cement encapsulation of wastes is the commonly followed method for immobilising these wastes, polymer encapsulation offers a viable alternative for the management of these problematic waste streams. UKAEA is leading the development of polymer encapsulation techniques in the UK. UKAEA is currently at the forefront of this area of research in the UK both in terms of trials work designed to encapsulate a wide range of waste streams that are unsuitable for other approaches and in the understanding of the bespoke radiation hard formulations that have been developed for this work. UKAEA have the in house expertise that have allowed the Radioactive Waste Management Directive Letter of Compliance procedure to be followed for the use of polymers as encapsulation media for UK orphan wastes throughout the length of this work.
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