Reprocessing is DIRTY. It increases the volume of nuclear waste by a factor of 20 or more. This waste, which is prone to contaminate nearby communities, would remain indefinitely at the reprocessing facility.

Increases Waste Volume

Anyone who calls reprocessing “recycling” is pulling your leg. Rather than reducing the volume of nuclear waste, reprocessing dramatically increases the volume of waste. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists,

“[R]eprocessing does not reduce the need for storage and disposal of radioactive waste…. After reprocessing…the total volume of nuclear waste will have been increased by a factor of twenty or more….” MORE

Tends to Contaminate

Reprocessing plants are also prone to contaminate the environment and surrounding communities. According to the Institute for Policy Studies,

“As it chops and dissolves used fuel rods, a reprocessing plant releases on the average about 15 thousand times more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear power reactors and generates several dangerous waste streams….

Radiation doses to people living near the Sellafield reprocessing facility in England were found to be 10 times higher than for the general population. Denmark, Norway, and Ireland have sought to close the French and English plants because of their radiological impacts. For instance, discharges of Iodine 129, a very long-lived carcinogen, have contaminated the shores of Denmark and Norway at levels 1,000 times higher than nuclear weapons fallout. Health studies indicate that significant excess childhood cancers have occurred near French and English reprocessing plants.” MORE

Terrible Track Record:

Reprocessing for military use in the United States has left a tragic, and expensive, environmental legacy. The Institute for Policy Studies says:

“By the end of the Cold War about 100 million gallons of high-level radioactive wastes were left in aging tanks that are larger than most state capitol domes. More than a third of some 200 tanks have leaked and threaten water supplies such as the Columbia River.

According to DOE, treatment and disposal will cost more than $100 billion; and after 26 years of trying, [the Department of] Energy has processed less than one percent of the radioactivity in these wastes for disposal.

By comparison, the amount of wastes from spent power reactor fuel [reprocessing] in the U.S. would dwarf that of the nuclear weapons program – generating about 25 times more radioactivity.” MORE

Note also that the nation’s only commercial reprocessing facility, in West Valley, New York, operated from 1966 to 1972, when it was closed due to earthquake concerns. Cleanup is still “expected to take 40 years and cost over $5 billion,” according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. MORE

No Permanent Storage

Waste generated by a reprocessing plant would remain on site indefinitely. That’s because, after decades of debate, the U.S. still hasn’t established a permanent disposal site.

In 1987, the federal government designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada a safe “geologic repository” for nuclear waste. Today, the feds are still struggling to prove that Yucca Mountain meets environmental standards, while also battling strong opposition by the State of Nevada.

Even optimists say that Yucca Mountain won’t open until 2017– a full thirty years after the site was designated. Others say it will never open at all.

The lack of a safe, permanent disposal site for nuclear waste strongly influenced a recent recommendation on reprocessing by the South Carolina Climate, Energy, and Commerce Advisory Committee. The committee, which represented diverse interests throughout the state, unanimously recommended that support for reprocessing in South Carolina “should be contingent on the shipment of the waste out-of-state to an operating facility that is actively receiving nuclear waste for long-term disposal.” MORE at 5-9.

Click below to learn more about:

• Legacy of Reprocessing in SC