There are different type of wastes generated in a nuclear power plant. Most of them cannot be reused (clothes, tools, used parts of the technology, furniture, etc.) but landfilled in safe environment like old, exploited salt mines.

The deuterium and the old nuclear fuel cells could be reused in the future and it is not about the developing or developed countries but about the availability of the technology somewhere. If it is in another country, the used nuclear cells should be transported there. Normally, you make a contract on a way that the nuclear fuel supplier's obligation to solve the issue with the old cells.

Other solution, burying the old fuel cells in an exploited uranium mine. Reusing nuclear fuel cells only makes sense if the virgin fuel and the burying of the old cells cost more than the reusing.

During the operation of a nuclear power plant for electricity generation three types of nuclear waste are produced: a) low-level waste, b) intermediate-level waste and c) high-level waste. The most significant high-level waste from a nuclear reactor is the used nuclear fuel left after it has spent about three years in the reactor generating heat for electricity. Low-level waste is made up of lightly-contaminated items like tools and work clothing from power plant operation and makes up the bulk of radioactive wastes. Items disposed of as intermediate-level wastes might include used filters, steel components from within the reactor and some effluents from reprocessing.

Volume Radioactive content

High-level waste 3% 95%

Intermediate-level waste 7% 4%

Low-level waste 90% 1%

Generating enough electricity for one person produces just 30 grams of used fuel each year.

High-level wastes make just 3% of the total volume of waste arising from nuclear generation, but they contain 95% of the radioactivity arising from nuclear power. Low-level wastes represent 90% of the total volume of radioactive wastes, but contain only 1% of the radioactivity.

Managing used fuel

Used nuclear fuel is very hot and radioactive. Handling and storing it safely can be done as long as it is cooled, and plant workers are shielded from the radiation it produces by a dense material like concrete or steel, or by a few meters of water.

Water can conveniently provide both cooling and shielding, so a typical reactor will have its fuel removed underwater and transferred to a storage pool. After about five years it can be transferred into dry ventilated concrete containers, but otherwise it can safely remain in the pool indefinitely - usually for up to 50 years.

Currently, the majority of used fuel is not recycled, but reprocessing used fuel to recover uranium and plutonium avoids the wastage of a valuable resource. Most of the used fuel - about 96% - is uranium, and up to 1% is plutonium, with the remaining 3% being high-level waste. Both reprocessed uranium and plutonium have been recycled into new fuel. Plutonium mixed with uranium in their oxide forms is known as mixed oxide fuel (MOX).

The high-level wastes (whether as used fuel after 50 years cooling, or the separated 3% of reprocessed fuel) will be disposed of deep underground in geological repositories.

Intermediate and low-level wastes

Intermediate- and low-level wastes are disposed of closer to the surface, in many established repositories. Low-level waste disposal sites are purpose built, but are not much different from normal municipal waste sites and some of them can be reused.

Nuclear power is not the only industry that creates radioactive wastes. Other industries include medicine, particle and space research, oil and gas, and mining - to name just a few. Some of these materials are not produced inside a reactor, but rather are concentrated forms of naturally occurring radioactive material.

Civil nuclear wastes from nuclear power plants can be managed and eventual disposal using well known technology.

One characteristic of all radioactive wastes which distinguishes them from the very much larger amount of other toxic industrial wastes is that their radioactivity progressively decays and diminishes. For instance, after 40 years, the used fuel removed from a reactor has only one thousandth of its initial radioactivity remaining, making it very much easier to handle and dispose of.

Disposal

The categorization - high, intermediate, low - helps determine how wastes are treated and where they end up. High-level wastes require shielding and cooling, low-level wastes can be handled easily without shielding.

All radioactive waste facilities are designed with numerous layers of protection to make sure that people remain protected for as long as it takes for radioactivity to reduce to background levels. Low-level and intermediate wastes are buried close to the surface. For low-level wastes disposal is not much different from a normal municipal landfill. High-level wastes can remain highly radioactive for thousands of years. They need to be disposed of deep underground in engineered facilities built in stable geological formations. While no such facilities for high-level wastes currently operate, their feasibility has been demonstrated and there are several countries now in the process of designing and constructing them.

This assessment is valid for developed and developing countries alike. However, with a doubt the management and disposal of nuclear waste for nuclear power plants can be more complicated, expensive, and difficult for developing countries that for developed countries due to economic and technological reasons.

read this article "NUCLEAR WASTE MANAGEMENT AND ENVIRONMENT by U. C. Mishra " and visit following link you will find many relevant information

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx

http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/te_1105_prn.pdf

Problems associated with radioactive waste management on a long-term are major ones that humanity has not been able to come to terms with so far. Although, there are undoubted technical solutions to finding various disposal routes for radioactive wastes, like shallow burial, deep mines, disposal under the sea-bed, . Even in the USA, shallow burial sites have been closed following the discovery of poor containment of wastes and sloppy management. However, there is no international consensus regarding the best technological solution for waste disposal. The options available are also entangled in the contradiction between scientific understanding and human values.

Radioactive waste is any material that is either radioactive itself or is contaminated by radioactivity, for which no further use is envisaged.

The objective of radioactive waste management is to control and account for radioactive waste to protect human health and the environment now, but also to make sure we do not leave unnecessary burdens for future generations. The preferred way to do this, where reasonably practicable, is to concentrate and contain the waste and to isolate it from the environment. This allows any releases to the environment to be restricted and subject to regulatory control. In Europe the hierarchy, as set out in the European Directive 2008/ 98/ EC on Waste (the Waste Framework Directive) encourages the adoption of options for managing waste in the following order of priority:

• Prevention: Creation of waste should be prevented, or reduced at source (i.e. minimised), as far as possible to secure the conservation of nature and resources, in particular waste that cannot be managed using current techniques, or techniques under current development;

• Preparing for reuse: Where waste cannot be prevented, waste materials or products should, where appropriate, be reused directly or refurbished then reused;

• Recycling: Waste materials should be recycled or processed into a form that allows them to be reclaimed as a secondary raw material, where appropriate; and

• Disposal: Only if waste cannot be prevented, reused, recycled or recovered should it be disposed of into the environment and this should only be undertaken in a controlled and authorised manner.

The waste hierarchy is a stepwise approach to achieving waste minimisation to promote sustainability that considers the lifecycles of both the processes that create waste and the waste that is produced from them. This approach is also appropriate for the 3rd world countries.