As mentioned earlier, as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland are plan­ning the construction of new NPPs, this must go hand in hand with develop­ment of waste management systems compatible with available equipment and storage and disposal facilities. Experience gained at existing NPPs yielded a number of findings, which can be used to build new waste manage­ment systems for these new NPPs. Firstly, it was found that any improvement to waste management systems after start-up of operation of the NPP is very costly and sometimes impossible. This concerns primarily the management of liquid waste. Secondly, it was determined that the bituminisation technol­ogy can provide good waste form properties, but the technology itself requires additional measures to reduce the risk of fire and relatively complex waste liquid pre-treatment to prevent the crystallisation of boric acid.

Both the Czech and Slovak Republics and Poland have launched several scientific projects concerning the development of new waste management technologies (Vokal et al., 2007, Hanusik et al., 2008, Noferi, 2009). The results suggest that implementation of new waste management technologies (new liquid waste treatment systems, new conditioning technologies such as polymer encapsulation or embedding of waste in ceramic materials) could significantly improve the waste management systems, but their imple­mentation will require much effort and money.

In the Czech Republic a programme of deep geological disposal of SF is under way and in the Slovak Republic and Poland is under preparation, but all face many problems connected primarily with finding acceptable sites for location of the repository.