| Waste management is arguably the key consideration in the delivery of successful decommissioning and demolition projects. Whilst waste management and disposal routes - albeit only conceptual for some wastestreams - have been identified and are available for numerous wasteforms, treatment and disposal of non-standard wastes (including so-called 'orphan' wastes) is much less well-defined and poses both a technical challenge to waste management organisations and a significant risk to the delivery of accelerated decommissioning programmes. In response to this challenge, Sellafield Limited has been exploring the use of technologies available via external treatment contractors for the treatment and disposal of radioactively contaminated non-standard wastes. This has been achieved by undertaking a series of waste treatment demonstration trials to support ongoing non-standard waste optioning. The aim of these trials was to collect data and information to identify and formalise waste disposal routes for certain bulk non-standard wastes, so as to support accelerated decommissioning and demolition of the Sellafield site. The purpose of this article is to present the preliminary conclusions and lessons learned from these demonstration trials, and to identify the significance of these trials within the regulatory and industrial context of LLW management in the UK.
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