In 2001 the UK Government published "Managing Radioactive Waste Safely – Proposals for developing a policy for managing solid radioactive waste in the UK", which detaled the various classifications of radioactive waste in the UK. There are -
Very Low Level Waste (VLLW): Wastes which can be disposed of with ordinary refuse, each 0.1m3 of material containing less than 400 kBq of β/γ activity or single items containing less than 40 kBq.
Low Level Waste (LLW): Containing radioactive materials other than those suitable for disposal with ordinary refuse, but not exceeding 4 GBq/te of α or 12 GBq/te of β/γ activity – that is wastes which can be accepted for authorised disposal at the Low Level Waste Repository near Drigg, Dounreay or other landfill sites by controlled burial.
Intermediate Level Waste (ILW): Wastes with radioactivity levels exceeding the upper boundaries for LLW, but which do not need heating to be taken into account in the design of storage or disposal facilities.
High Level Waste (HLW): Waste in which the temperature may rise significantly as a result of their radiaoctivity, so this factor has to be taken into account in designing storage or disposal facilities.
The 2007 NDA Inventory of UK radioactive Wastes reported the following volumes
Total 3,430,000 m3
LLW 3,190,000 m3 - 93.1% by volume
ILW 236,000 m3 - 6.9% by volume
HLW 1,090 m3 - less than 0.1% by volume
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