Radioactive waste and NORM waste in construction and demolition
In construction and demolition there exist two types of materials capable of emitting radiation: radiation wastes and NORMs.
Radioactive wastes are defined as intrinsically radioactive material, or materials contaminated by radioactivity, which have no further use foreseen. Therefore, the term radioactive waste encompasses a wide range of radioactive isotopes in a variety of physical and chemical forms.
These wastes are classified into four different types, depending on their half-life (time taken for half of its atoms to decay, and thus for it to lose half of its radioactivity): very low-level waste, low-level waste, intermediate-level waste, high-level waste.
The requirements for handling, storing, transporting, and disposal will depend on the group of the ones aforementioned in which the waste is included.
Regarding its origin, radioactive wastes are produced in several industries and activities, such as mining through to fuel fabrication, electricity generation, reprocessing of used fuel, decommissioning nuclear plants, national laboratories and universities research activities, industrial gauges and radiography sources or nuclear medicine activities at hospitals.
For its part, NORM-waste (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material), is material found in the environment that contains radioactive elements from natural origin.
NORM can come to the earth’s surface due to natural processes (for example, radon gas moving through cracks in rocks or dissolving and being transported by groundwater flows), or due to human activities (mining, oil and gas extraction, etc.).
Although the concentration of NORM in most natural substances is low, higher concentrations may arise as the result of human activities.
The processing of raw materials by many resource-based industries may increase the concentration of radioactive substances in those materials to levels at which special precautions are needed for handling, storing, transporting, and disposal of material, by-products, end-products, or process equipment.
On this matter, this type of waste can be found in the following industries: oil and gas production, thermal electricity, mineral extraction and processing, tunnelling and underground workings, metal recycling, waste management, and water treatment.
Both types of wastes, radioactive and NORM suppose a big issue in construction as improperly handled, transported, and/or stored can cause serious damaging effects to both, the environment and human health.
Concerning the environment, radiation coming from these wastes can contaminate ground and water for a long time, up to several decades. This situation will produce disastrous effects on animals and plants which live in or around the contaminated areas.
Besides, its radioactivity can have negative effects on the human body. A very high level of radiation exposure delivered over a short period of time can cause symptoms such as nausea and vomiting and in the most severe cases can even result in death over the following days or weeks. Exposure to low levels of radiation does not cause immediate health effects but can cause an increase in the risk of cancer over a lifetime.
Moreover, regarding circular economy, incorrectly managed, these wastes can ruin the objective of “closing the cycle”, as they can contaminate all the surrounding materials. This will cause that those materials will be considered radioactive wastes themselves, ruining the possibility of reusing or recycling them.
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