Recently, the Ministry of Environmental Protection ("MEP") has drafted the Measures for Categorizing Radioactive Solid Wastes (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") to solicit comments from units concerned before March 20, 2017.
The Draft for Comment is comprised of four chapters respectively titled the general provisions, classification system for radioactive solid wastes, directory of all categories and corresponding limits and special application of the classification system, in addition to a schedule attached in the end. According to the Draft for Comment, radioactive solid wastes are categorized into six groups, namely the exempted wastes, wastes with extremely short duration of radioactivity, very-low-level radioactive wastes, low-level radioactive wastes, intermediate-level radioactive wastes, and high-level radioactive wastes, but other classification methods are not excluded. Corresponding disposal plans include the exemption/elimination of control, keeping in storage for decay purpose, landfill on the surface, disposal near the surface, disposal at intermediate depth and disposal at considerable depth. Furthermore, the Draft for Comment, when describing various wastes, gives their respective definitions in the first place, then sets out the range of activity and concentration with express upper limit and lower limit, and ultimately sets forth the main sources of each waste with typical examples.