If transport of ore, processed concentrates or generated residues from mining of Uranium, Rare Earths or any further commodity containing Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) is needed, the strict class 7 requirements apply.
These IAEA transport requirements ensure comprehensive safety for the involved staff and the public. Moreover, the class 7 requirements cover transport by ship, by rail/road or by air and even include sending by post (e.g. of samples).
In the case of NORM (i.e. containing Uranium, Thorium and their decay products like Radium) this is achieved mainly through marking, labelling and placarding of packages and freight containers with specific warning signs as well as through provision of accompanying transport documents and having a radiation protection program available etc. Which requirements exactly apply depend essentially on the
• Specific (Bq/g) and/or total activity (Bq) of a NORM containing material,
• Dose rate (µSv/h or mSv/h) of a package or freight container.
How strict especially activity limits are and the effort required for laboratory determination e.g. of the radioisotopic composition also depend, if a material is still considered as „natural“ (only physically processed) or if the natural equilibrium between the various radionuclides became disturbed (e.g. by chemical and/or thermal processing).
If the activity is not such low that material can be even exempted from the class 7 require-ments (often ore and residues), NORM containing material like processing concentrates are usually transported using the categories
• Excepted Package/UN 2910 (only marking; e.g. dose rate < 5µSv/h)
or, if activities/dose rates are higher,
• LSA-I/UN 2912 (marking, labelling and placarding; no post transport).
In addition to the class 7 requirements international transport of NORM also needs to comply with country-specific import/export requirements. While based on non-proliferation rules some countries may only require declaration of contained radionuclides along with basic information, others can even require the sender confirming that the receiver holds an according safety licence.
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