Radioactive waste disposal
Radioactive waste is governed by a licensing regime rather than by the hazardous waste rules. When a material is both radioactive and chemically hazardous, it does not fall between the two regimes — it falls under both.
Mixed waste is not a category, it is two regimes at once
A waste that is radioactive and also a RCRA hazardous waste is subject to the radioactive materials licensing requirements and to the hazardous waste rules simultaneously. Neither yields to the other, so where they differ the more demanding requirement governs, and the number of facilities permitted and licensed to take the result is small. The practical consequence for a generator is that mixed waste should be identified as early as possible, because options narrow sharply and lead times lengthen. It is also worth avoiding creating it: a laboratory that uses a chlorinated solvent in a procedure involving a radioisotope has made a mixed waste out of two ordinary ones, and substituting the solvent is easier than finding somewhere for the result.
What goes this way
The streams radioactive waste disposal handles, and what each one is under the rules — with acceptance decided by a profile rather than by a name on a drum.
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Licensed material
Sealed sources
From instrumentation, gauges and laboratory equipment, with their own transfer and record requirements.
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Licensed material
Laboratory radioisotope waste
Scintillation fluid, labware and consumables from research and analysis.
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Both regimes
Mixed waste
Radioactive and RCRA hazardous at once, with a narrow set of facilities able to accept it.
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By survey
Contaminated equipment and media
Items requiring survey before release, reuse or disposal.
When this is not the right route
The cases where radioactive waste disposal is not what you want, and what to use instead.
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The activity is naturally occurring material concentrated by an industrial process
Go to NORM Waste Disposal -
It is chemically hazardous with no radiological component
Go to RCRA Hazardous Waste Disposal
What you get back
The records radioactive waste disposal produces, and what each one is evidence of — because the liability for a waste stays with the generator from the moment it is created until it is destroyed.
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Licensed transfer record
Evidence the material moved to a licensed recipient, which is the document this regime turns on. For a sealed source it is also what closes out your own inventory.
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Survey and release records
For equipment and media assessed before release, reuse or disposal.
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Mixed waste documentation
Where both regimes applied, records satisfying each of them — because neither yields to the other.
Who sends us this
The facility types that usually need radioactive waste disposal, each with its own page on what that process produces and under which codes.
Before you ask for a price
What generators ask about radioactive waste disposal, answered from the rules rather than from marketing copy.
Do not treat it as scrap. Sealed sources have transfer and record requirements of their own, and the manufacturer or a licensed recipient is usually the right route. Establish what the source is before anything is moved.
Being radioactive and meeting a RCRA hazardous waste definition at the same time. Scintillation fluid containing a listed solvent is the classic laboratory example, and substituting the solvent is usually easier than disposing of the result.
Because very few facilities hold both the license and the permit required to take it, so there is little capacity and long lead time. Identifying it early is the main thing a generator can do about the cost.
Describe the stream. We will tell you the route.
A description of the process and a rough quantity is enough to start. A Certified Hazardous Materials Manager reads every request, and sometimes the answer is a different service than the one you asked about.