Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd -Discharges

Discharges

Radioactive waste is generated wherever nuclear materials exist. It can contaminate other items, effluents and airflows.

Contaminated effluent and airflows need to be managed safely to ensure they are disposed of in a way that minimises their impact on people and the environment.

Discharges to the environment of liquid and gaseous wastes have been a common feature of nuclear sites since their development in the 1940s.

Over the following decades, scientists gained more knowledge about the impact of these discharges and attitudes of society towards environmental pollution changed. Coupled with improvements in technology, this has led to a progressive reduction in discharges to the environment.

At Dounreay, gaseous and liquid discharges were first authorised by the Scottish Office in 1958.

Discharges from the site reached a peak in the late 1960s. Since then, discharges and the limits set by regulatory bodies have both reduced substantially. The end of reprocessing at Dounreay in 1996 resulted in a further steep fall in discharges.

Today, discharges to the environment from decommissioning Dounreay are regulated by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) under the Radioactive Substances Act. This sets out legal limits for different types of discharges and imposes conditions, such as the need to use best practicable means to keep discharges to a minimum.

The site itself imposes lower limits on each plant and applies constant downward pressure on plant managers to reduce their discharges to the minimum necessary.

All discharges are measured and results reported to SEPA and published on this website.

Throughout the history of Dounreay, the site has been required to monitor the impact of its discharges through an agreed programme of environmental monitoring.

Members of the public are exposed to natural sources of radioactivity every day. The international community recommends limits and constraints on exposures to members of the public. These limits and constraints have been subsumed into European and UK legislation to provide protection from ionising radiations from the use of radioactive materials.

Data about discharges from Dounreay and their impact on the environment appears in the Radioactivity in Food and the Environment series of reports published annually by regulators. It confirms that any additional exposure to members of the public from these discharges as well as other sources such as Chernobyl and bomb fallout are well within the recommended limits and constraints.