Management of spent sealed radiation sources

Spent or disused sealed radiation sources--no longer needed sources--may represent a risk of radiological accident or may be a target for criminal acts in countries where final disposal options are unavailable and where an increasing number of sources are being kept in extended storage. In developing countries, thousands of radium needles, teletherapy sources, oil well logging neutron sources, and miscellaneous industrial radioactive gauges are annually collected as waste and stored in research institutes. The objectives of the study described in this paper are to inventory such sources in Brazil, including those presently in use and those already collected as waste, and to design a dedicated repository where spent sources could be disposed of properly. The inventory of sources in Brazil and the concept of the repository are presented and its feasibility is discussed.