Radioactive Waste Management: What Does the Public Need to Know?

Radioactive Waste Management: What Does the Public Need to Know? Anti-nuclear activists claim that the United States should abandon nuclear energy because we do not know how to safely manage radioactive wastes, and those previous attempts to manage even low-level wastes have been environmental disasters. Unfortunately this biased and distorted depiction is believed by many people, and has spread paranoia and an irrational fear and public distrust about anything radioactive. This fear has done little to persuade Federal and State governments to make legislative decisions that are based on the recommendations of scientists and engineers with regard to managing radioactive wastes. Instead, the decisions are based on politics, and the all-too familiar of approach of “kicking the can down the road.” We must do better in providing the public and policy makers with factual and unbiased information.