All forms of electricity generation produce some form of waste. Nuclear power is the only energy-producing industry that takes full responsibility for managing all its waste.

Civil nuclear waste has been managed without a significant environmental release for six decades. Unlike some other toxic wastes, such as heavy metals, the principal hazard associated with nuclear waste – its radioactivity – diminishes with time.

Nuclear waste is categorised as low, intermediate or high, according to its level of radioactivity. There are final disposal facilities in operation for low- and intermediate-level waste.

Most high-level waste is used reactor fuel. The amount of reactor fuel requiring disposal is relatively small; the total amount produced by the US nuclear industry over the last 40 years would, if stacked side by side, cover a football field to a height of about seven metres.

The international scientific consensus is for high-level waste to be disposed of in deep geological repositories. The first such repository is due to open in Finland in the 2020s.