In the 1980s, radioactive waste disposal work was initiated in China. The former Ministry of Nuclear Industry (MNI) subsidiary Science and Technol­ogy Committee set up a panel to examine RAW treatment and disposal. The siting of solid LILW disposal facilities began in the 1980s and was implemented under the auspices of the former MNI. The initial siting work was conducted in South China, East China, Northwest China, and Southeast China based on the distribution of nuclear facilities at that time. Determina­tion of the South China disposal site began in 1991, with 27 candidate areas being selected. Of these, 20 were investigated on site and three candidate sites were identified. In 1998, initial reconnaissance was carried out within the area of Zhejiang province, East China, with 17 areas surveyed and five candidate sites identified. In Northwest China, two candidate sites were identified on the basis of six surveyed areas. After further comparison, a disposal site in the northwest was determined. In southwest China, exami­nation of disposal sites was carried out from 1989 to 1991. The site survey was carried out in ten candidate areas selected from an initial 38 areas, of which three candidate sites were finally recommended.

China’s Environmental Policy on Disposal of LILWs was issued in 1992 (hereinafter referred to as Paper 45) [15], which clarify the environmental policy on LILW. Paper 45 states that national disposal facilities for LILWs shall be constructed in the regions where major waste generation occurs in order to dispose of LILWs generated in the region and neighbouring regions. Paper 45 played an active role in promoting the siting and construction of LILW disposal sites. In 1998, construction of the Northwest disposal facility was completed, with planned capacity of 200,000 m3. The first phase of construction was planned to generate 60,000 m3 of disposal capacity, and so far 20,000 m3 has been constructed. The Northwest disposal facility is currently in trial operation. By the end of 2006, this site received 471 m3 of LILW with total activity of 3.05 x 1012Bq. In August 2000, Guangdong Beilong, China’s second solid LILW disposal facility was constructed in the Guangdong Province with planned long-term capacity of 240,000 and planned near-term capacity of 80,000 m3 . The total capacity that has been constructed in the first phase was about 8,800 m3 and, by the end of 2006, the received waste amounted to 1403.2 m3. Environmental monitoring indi­cates that operation of these two LILW disposal sites has no negative impact on the surrounding environmental radiological levels and no radia­tion accident has occurred to date.

Under the Law of the People ’s Republic of China on Prevention and Control of Radioactive Pollution of 2003 [9], the relevant government agen­cies are developing the national programme of finding solid radioactive waste disposal sites. The principle is to make an overall plan and implement the project in a step-wise, convenient and economical way to ensure safety. Based on the future development of NPPs and the distribution of waste generation varying with time and region, the overall development pro­gramme for LILW disposal will be established including allocation of regions, siting planning, capacity of disposal site and construction plan. Based on the programme, a phased implementation approach shall be developed to keep the number and capacity of disposal sites countrywide adequate to meet the demand for RAW disposal in the various regions. Construction of disposal facilities on the sites that have been chosen should be implemented in phases based on the quantity of LILWs generated and on a basis of gradual disposal capacity extension so as to achieve the effec­tive disposal capacity. When considering the safety of LILW disposal, trans­portation is one of the most important factors. Full account must be taken of the safety, economics, and convenience of RAW transport. To this end, a reasonable arrangement should be made for the coverage of each regional disposal site.