The UK's Nuclear Decommis-sioning Authority (NDA) has recently put forward its plan to clean up all 20 of the civil nuclear waste sites it inherited on 1 April this year (see NEI September 2005, p43). NDA chairman Sir Anthony Cleaver spoke to NEI about the first six months of the organisation's full operation and outlined the reasoning behind the main points in the draft strategy. Cleaver emphasised that the strategy for cleaning up the UK's nuclear legacy is still at the draft stage, but said the NDA believes it is the best way forward. Asked whether it is realistic to rely on long-term management solutions to the country's intermediate-level radioactive waste (ILW) and high-level waste (HLW) being decided within the next few years, he pointed out that the strategy would only be affected at the stage of final disposal. "It isn't that we're sitting here saying: 'We've got to have this solution and the whole thing falls apart if not'," he said. However, "the one thing that we wouldn't be able to do if there isn't a destination for ILW is we wouldn't be able to decommission the Magnox sites in 25 years." Clearly, if there isn't a destination for the waste, then waste arising from cleanup operations will either have to remain on the sites, or be rationalised at a reduced number of storage centres.
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