Radioactive Waste: Responsibility, Licence and the Officer
October 4, 2026
11 min read
DITEC Experts, Radiation Protection Team, ALDuha Institute for Training and Environmental Consulting
The part of the waste chapter that decides who answers for it
Waste is the one area of radiation work where the question who is responsible has a habit of going unanswered. A source has a custodian and a licence. A room has a supervisor. A drum in the corner of a store, generated by a department that has since been reorganised, belongs to nobody in particular until somebody asks. These four articles are the Regulation's answer, and the answer is unambiguous.
Article 82 places responsibility on the licensee and lists six things it includes. Article 83 requires a licence for managing waste - a separate one, not an extension of the licence to hold the source. Article 84 requires a named, qualified and independent officer for waste management. Article 85 opens Chapter Two of the Part by setting out how far inspection reaches, and it reaches further than most readers expect.
Article 82: responsibility on the licensee, and six things it includes
Article 82 is headed responsibilities and it starts with the allocation. The licensee is considered responsible for the safe management of radioactive waste, and he must take all the steps necessary to assure the safety of this waste, and comply with all the instructions on the safe management of radioactive waste, as well as comply with all the appropriate instructions, including the instructions on radiological protection and safety.
The sentence does something that matters when a contractor is involved. Responsibility is placed on the licensee, not on whoever physically handles the material. A facility that engages a specialist company to collect and treat its waste has not transferred the responsibility in Article 82; it has bought a service. The duty to take all necessary steps and to comply still sits with the licensee, which in practice means the contract has to be written so that the licensee can show he discharged it - who holds which licence, what records come back, and what evidence of destination is provided.
The article then lists six things the licensee's responsibilities include. Safety and environmental impact evaluations; assuring sufficient protection for workers, the general public and the environment; assuring the provision of trained individuals, suitable equipment and facilities, training and operating steps so that the steps of radioactive waste management are carried out safely; establishing and applying a quality assurance programme for the waste generated and for its treatment, storage and disposal; establishing and keeping records of the appropriate information on the generation, treatment, storage and disposal of the waste, including the inventory of that waste; and providing monitoring and supervision over the waste generated and the places where it is stored.
Item 1 is the one the Institute most often finds missing in a documentation review. An environmental impact evaluation for the waste stream is a document in its own right, and it is not the same as the site evaluation under Article 73 or the safety assessment that supported the original licence. Item 4 is the second most common finding, and it recurs in expanded form in Article 94, which requires the quality assurance programme to be submitted to the Ministry for endorsement as part of the licence application and lists eight things its documents must contain.
Item 5 is the quiet one that decides whether the others can be shown. It asks for records across the whole chain - generation, treatment, storage and disposal - and for the inventory. An inventory is not a list of what is in the store today; Article 1 defines the waste inventory record as the detailed records of all the items kept by the operator or the Council, containing data such as the physical quantity and the radioactivity of the waste, the radionuclide content and other characteristics. Article 96 then sets out what has to be reported from it and when.
The six responsibilities of Article 82, and the document each one leaves
Assessment
- 1. Safety and environmental impact evaluations - a document for the waste stream in its own right.
Protection and capability
- 2. Sufficient protection for workers, the public and the environment.
- 3. Trained individuals, suitable equipment and facilities, training and operating steps.
Assurance and evidence
- 4. A quality assurance programme for generation, treatment, storage and disposal - expanded by Article 94.
- 5. Records across the whole chain, including the waste inventory.
- 6. Monitoring and supervision of the waste generated and of its storage places.
Article 83: a separate licence, thirty days, and a flat prohibition
Article 83 is headed the licence and it has three paragraphs that are usually remembered as one. The first is the requirement: no natural or legal person may manage radioactive waste without a licence from the Council.
That is a licence for an activity, and it is not the same instrument as the licence to possess a source or to carry out a practice under Articles 9 and 11. A facility can hold a perfectly valid practice licence and still be managing waste without the licence this article requires - and since Article 1 defines waste management as all the administrative and operational activities involved in handling, treating, conditioning, storing and disposing of waste, with transport taken into account, the threshold for being in waste management is low.
The second paragraph sets the timing and the content. The applicant must apply to the Council for a licence to manage radioactive waste thirty days before commencing the work, and the application includes all the details relating to that management in accordance with the requirements of this Regulation and the conditions and procedures issued by the Committee. Thirty days before commencing the work is a hard date, and it is before the first drum exists rather than before the store fills up.
The third paragraph is the one almost nobody quotes, and it is a flat prohibition with no licence attached to it at all. No natural or legal person may store radioactive waste generated abroad inside the borders of the State or in its territorial sea or its exclusive economic zone.
Three features of that paragraph deserve attention. It is absolute: unlike the first paragraph, there is no except with a licence. It is geographic in a way that goes past the land border, reaching the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone. And the operative word is storing waste generated abroad - which is the question a facility should ask before it agrees to take material back from a regional project, or to hold a contractor's waste that arrived with imported equipment. Where a sealed source has to leave the country, the route the Regulation contemplates is the return to the supplier in Article 89, planned at the time of purchase.
Article 84: a named officer, and the word independence
Article 84 is headed the appointment of the radioactive waste management officer. The licensee must appoint a person who is technically qualified and enjoys independence, to act as the person responsible for radioactive waste management, provided that he is licensed to do so by the Council; and the radiation protection officer may carry out this task in the cases the Council considers appropriate.
Three requirements are stacked in one sentence, and all three are conditions. The person must be technically qualified. He must enjoy independence. And he must himself be licensed by the Ministry for the role - which connects to Article 9, where the personal licence is the first of the kinds of licence the Council issues, and to Article 21, under which the President issues the conditions for licensing those working in the radiological fields.
The word independence is the interesting one, because it has no counterpart in Article 29, where the radiation protection officer is appointed. The Regulation does not define it here, and this explanation will not supply a binding definition for a word the instrument left open. What can be said is the Institute's reading of what the word guards against: the structural conflict that arises when the person who decides whether a stream may be released, or whether a container may be moved, reports to the person whose production those decisions slow down. In the Institute's view - and this is our reading, not the text - the reporting line and the authority to withhold a release are what a facility should settle in the appointment decision, and they are worth settling with the Ministry rather than assuming.
The last clause is a practical relief and it is often read too generously. The radiation protection officer may carry out this task - in the cases the Council considers appropriate. So the combination of the two roles in one person is permitted, but it is the Ministry's call and not the facility's. A small clinic that has given both roles to the same officer has probably arrived at a sensible arrangement; it should still have the arrangement confirmed rather than inferred, because the text makes the Council's view the condition.
The two officers, as the Regulation appoints them
| Point of comparison | Radiation protection officer, Article 29 | Waste management officer, Article 84 |
|---|---|---|
| Appointed by | The licensee, who names a person responsible for radiation protection | The licensee |
| Technical qualification | A qualified technician, per the definition in Article 1 | Technically qualified, expressly |
| Independence | Not mentioned in Article 29 | Required expressly - enjoys independence |
| Licensed for the role | Personal licence under Articles 9 and 21 | Must be licensed to do so by the Council |
| May one person hold both? | The question is answered in Article 84, not here | Yes, in the cases the Council considers appropriate |
Article 85: how far inspection reaches
Article 85 opens Chapter Two of Part Five, headed control and inspection, and it is a single long sentence about reach. All practices connected directly or indirectly with radioactive waste, and all the places where these practices are carried out, or which may affect them or be affected by them, are subject to inspection by the Council. The Council also has the right to inspect all persons carrying out practices connected with the management of radioactive waste, and all records of radioactive material or waste, and to obtain copies of those records.
Four expansions are packed into that sentence, and each one widens the article past the obvious. Directly or indirectly connected takes in the practice that generates the waste, not only the handling of it. Places which may affect them or be affected by them reaches past the store itself - a plant room whose failure would flood it, a neighbouring area that a release would reach. All persons carrying out practices covers contractors and their staff, not only the licensee's employees. And obtain copies of those records settles in advance an argument that otherwise happens at the door.
This article sits alongside the general inspection chapter rather than replacing it: Article 22 obliges the holder of a source to allow judicial police officers and those charged with inspection to enter, and Article 23 lets radiation protection inspectors make rounds without prior notice, during the official working hours of each facility and with the facility's own safety conditions observed. Read together, the practical position is that a waste store is inspectable without warning, and the file is inspectable with it.
The useful way to prepare for this article is not to tidy the store. It is to assume that the inventory, the records required by item 5 of Article 82 and the quality assurance documents of Article 94 will be read by somebody who may take them away, and to make sure they say what the facility believes they say.
Questions these articles get asked
A contractor collects and treats our waste. Are we still responsible?
Yes. Article 82 places responsibility for the safe management of radioactive waste on the licensee, and engaging a contractor is the purchase of a service rather than a transfer of that responsibility. Two other provisions bear directly on the arrangement: Article 83 requires a licence from the Council to manage radioactive waste, so the contractor needs to hold one and you should hold a copy of it; and item 3 of Article 88 forbids transferring radioactive material to another beneficiary except with the Council's approval and after confirming that the receiving party is licensed by the Council. Keep the licence copies, the approval and the records that come back with the collection.
We hold a practice licence for our source. Do we need a separate waste licence?
Article 83 says no natural or legal person may manage radioactive waste without a licence from the Council, and it is a licence for that activity. The practice, facility and site licences of Articles 9 and 11 are different instruments with different subject matter. Whether your particular operations amount to managing waste is answered by the definition in Article 1 - all the administrative and operational activities involved in handling, treating, conditioning, storing and disposing of waste, with transport taken into account - read with the list of operations in Article 80. The sensible step is to put the question to the Ministry in writing and keep the answer, because the application has to be made thirty days before the work starts.
Can our radiation protection officer also be the waste management officer?
The last clause of Article 84 permits it - in the cases the Council considers appropriate. So the combination is lawful but it is the authority's decision rather than yours, and the practical course is to propose it and keep the confirmation. Note also that Article 84 attaches two requirements to the role that Article 29 does not attach to the radiation protection officer: technical qualification stated expressly, and enjoying independence. Where one person holds both roles, the independence requirement is the one that needs thinking about, and it is worth settling the reporting line in the appointment decision.
A regional affiliate wants to send its disused sources to us for storage. Is that allowed?
The third paragraph of Article 83 is a flat prohibition: no natural or legal person may store radioactive waste generated abroad inside the borders of the State or in its territorial sea or its exclusive economic zone. Unlike the first paragraph of the same article, it has no except with a licence attached, so it is not a matter of applying for permission. Where a disused sealed source has to leave a country, the route the Regulation contemplates is the return to the supplier under Article 89, and that is a clause to be put in the purchase contract at the outset. Confirm the position with the Ministry before any commitment is given to an affiliate.
How much notice do we get before a waste inspection?
Article 85 sets no notice requirement at all, and Article 23 of the general inspection chapter expressly permits inspection rounds without prior notice, during the official working hours of each facility and observing its own safety conditions. Article 85 also gives the Ministry the right to inspect all records of radioactive material or waste and to obtain copies of them. The useful preparation is therefore the file rather than the notice: the inventory and the records required by item 5 of Article 82 should be in a state in which they can be handed over and read by somebody else.
How the Institute can help
Of these four articles, the two that produce real findings are Article 83 and item 1 of Article 82. Facilities routinely hold a valid practice licence while managing waste without the separate licence Article 83 requires, and the safety and environmental impact evaluation for the waste stream is usually absent rather than inadequate. The independence requirement in Article 84 is the third most common, and it is usually unexamined rather than breached.
Radiation Protection Officer training that covers the waste chapter and the duties of the waste management officer, advisory support in preparing the waste licence application under Article 83 and in drafting the appointment decision under Article 84 so that the reporting line and the authority to withhold a release are explicit, help in structuring the records and inventory required by item 5 of Article 82, and a documentation review that maps what you hold against Articles 82 to 85 one by one. Field inventory and any measurement of a waste stream come from specialist partners.
Scope of what the Institute does: training and consulting. Field radiation surveys are carried out through specialist partners working in the field. The Institute does not carry out laboratory analysis, instrument calibration or equipment testing.
A note on the authority named in the text. The Regulation says the Council, meaning the Supreme Council for the Environment and Natural Reserves. That body no longer exists. Competence today sits with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, and the unit concerned is named in the organisational decisions as the Radiation Protection Department. The word Council is kept inside the quotations because it is what the instrument says; everywhere else, read it as the Ministry.
This explanation is published for awareness by the radiation protection team at ALDuha Institute for Training and Environmental Consulting. The English text is an explanation, not a certified translation: the Arabic text published in the Official Gazette governs in case of any difference, and the official Arabic wording of every article discussed here is quoted in full on the Arabic version of this article. This explanation is introductory. It is not a legal opinion, it does not replace the conditions of your own licence, and it does not replace review by the regulator. Last updated 4 October 2026.