GENERAL INFORMATION

For many years now the Australian government has been searching for a national waste dump and in recent times they have been persuing the South Australian outback as a high possibility for the storage of the waste. There have been many objections to this such as the environment is to delciate and the outback s to good to waste. But there are also many for the dumping of the waste.

To this point South Australia has a law that says that only low level waste can be kept in South Australia but if it became a national dump this law would more than likely be changed by the Australian government. The three different catagories of waste Low-Level, Medium-Level and High-Level all could be stored here. Please click here to find out more information on the levels of waste.

There are many people for and against the waste dumps the reasons for the waste dumps are;

  • institutions should not have to store their own waste.
  • It is better to have a single national dump than to store waste on sitearound the country.
  • radioactive waste can be safely managed
  • There have been many tests conducted and there is no other way of disposing of the waste other than storing it.

    The resons against the national waste dump are;

  • toxic waste is never safe
  • Development of national dumps will encourage those who view Australiaas a potential international radioactive dump.
  • A national waste dump would seriously harm Australian agriculturalexports and the perception of Australia as "clean and green".
  • a low-level national waste dump would encourage acceptance ofintermediate-level and high-level nuclear waste in the future
  • 2002 has been declared "Year of the Outback" and the ShadowEnvironment Minister has pointed out the irony of using the outback as awaste dump
  • There is always going the waste polution for future generations to deal with.
  • Damage the environment