Safety Enhancements for TRU Waste Handling - 12258
For years, proper Health Physics practices and 'As Low As Reasonably Achievable' (ALARA) principles have fostered the use of glove boxes or other methods of handling (without direct contact) high activities of radioactive material. The physical limitations of using glove boxes on certain containers have resulted in high-activity wastes being held in storage awaiting a path forward. Highly contaminated glove boxes and other remote handling equipment no longer in use have also been added to the growing list of items held for storage with no efficient method of preparation for proper disposal without creating exposure risks to personnel. This is especially true for wastes containing alpha-emitting radionuclides such as Plutonium and Americium that pose significant health risks to personnel if these Transuranic (TRU) wastes are not controlled effectively. Like any good safety program or root cause investigation PFNW has found that the identification of the cause of a negative change, if stopped, can result in a near miss and lessons learned. If this is done in the world of safety, it is considered a success story and is to be shared with others to protect the workers. PFNW believes that the tools, equipment and resources have improved over the past number of years but that the use of them has not progressed at the same rate. If we use our tools to timely identify the effect on the work environment and immediately following or possibly even simultaneously identify the cause or some of the causal factors, we may have the ability to continue to work rather than succumb to the start and stop-work mentality trap that is not beneficial in waste minimization, production efficiency or ALARA. (authors)