Radioactive substances legislation - scope: guidance

Annex 1: Approach to exclusion and clearance in radioactive substances legislation in Scotland

International definitions

The IAEA definitions of the terms ‘exclusion’ and ‘clearance’ are taken from IAEA Safety Glossary, 2018 edition.

Exclusion is defined as:

‘The deliberate excluding of a particular type of exposure from the scope of an instrument of regulatory control on the grounds that is it not considered amenable to control through the regulatory instrument in question’.

Clearance is defined as:

Removal of regulatory control by the regulatory body from radioactive material or radioactive objects within notified or authorized facilities and activities.’

Euratom has developed these concepts further to derive numerical values for both ‘clearance’ and ‘exemption’. Clearance values/exemption values for bulk solid amounts are set out in Annex VII Table A of the BSSD 13. Exemption levels for moderate amounts for any type of material (solids, liquids, gases), are set out in Annex VII Table B of the BSSD 13. The general criteria for the exemption of practices or clearance of authorised practices are set out in Annex VII.

Approach to exclusion and clearance – ‘out of scope’

EASR achieves broadly the same result, in that substances and articles are ‘out of scope’, so not radioactive and not subject to regulatory controls, where they:

• are not amenable to control; or
• have radionuclide concentrations below the IAEA RS-G-1.7 (or equivalent) clearance levels.

Table 2 gives the values for NORM used in industrial activities and Table 3 for artificial radionuclides or NORM used for their radioactive, fissile or fertile properties). The section of this guidance on ‘Underpinning the out of scope numerical values’ explains the origin of the values (Table 3 derives from the BSSD 13 Table A).