Interpretation

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires“accident” means any unintended event, including operating errors, equipment failures or other mishaps, the consequences, or potential consequences of which are not negligible from the point of view of protection and safety; “activities” includes activities comprising any of the following, namely– (a) the production, use, import and export of radiation sources for industrial, research and medical purposes; (b) the transport of radioactive material; (c) the siting, construction, commissioning, operation and decommissioning of facilities; (d) Radiation Safety and Security [CAP. 330:019 (e) some aspects of the remediation of sites affected by residues from past activities; and (f) any undertaking involving nuclear material and any other undertaking subject to the “Appeals Tribunal” means the Radiation Safety and Security Appeals Tribunal established under section 39; “clearance” means the removal of radioactive material or radioactive objects within notified or licenced activities subject to licensing, from any further regulatory control by the Office; “Committee” means the Committee for Radiation Safety and Security established under section 10; “conditioning” means the operations that produce a waste package suitable for handling, transport, storage or disposal and may include the conversion of the waste to a solid waste form, enclosure of the waste in containers and if necessary, provision of an over pack; “decommissioning” means the administrative and technical actions taken to allow the removal of some or all of the regulatory controls from a facility; “device” means any nuclear explosive device, or any radioactive material, dispersal or radiation emitting device, which may, owing to its radiological properties, cause death, serious bodily injury or substantial damage to property or to the environment; “discharge” means the planned and controlled release of radioactive material into the environment; “disused source” means a radioactive source that is no longer used and is not intended to be used for the practice for which a licence had been granted; 10 “document” means, in addition to a document in writing, anything in which information of any description is recorded; “facility” means– (a) an irradiation installation, a radioactive waste management facility and any other place where radioactive material or radiation generators are produced, processed, used, handled, stored or disposed of, or radiation generators are installed on such a scale that consideration of protection and safety from ionizing radiation is required; and (b) for safeguards purposes– (i) a reactor, a critical facility, a conversion plant, a fabrication plant, a reprocessing plant, an isotope separation plant, or a separate storage installation; or (ii) any location where nuclear material in amounts greater than one effective kilogram is customarily used; “health professional” means a person licenced or registered under– (a) the Medical Practice Act; Act. No. 28 of 2013. CAP. 322. (b) the Opticians Act; (c) Nurses and Midwives Act; and CAP. 321. (d) the Dentists Act; CAP. 316. Radiation Safety and Security [CAP. 330:0111 “IAEA” means the International Atomic Energy Agency; “ionizing radiation” means radiation that is capable of producing ion pairs in biological materials; “licence” means a legal document issued by the Office granting authorization to perform activities, undertake practices or operate a facility under this Act; “licencee” means the holder of a licence; “Minister” means the Minister responsible for the environment; “nuclear material” means– (a) material containing– (i) plutonium except that with isotopic concentration exceeding eighty per cent in plutonium-238; (ii) uranium-233; (iii) uranium rich in isotope 235 or 233; (iv) uranium containing a mixture of isotopes occurring in nature other than in the form of ore or ore residue; (b) any material containing one or more of the material in sub-paragraphs (i) to (iv); or (c) any source material or any special fissionable “Office” means the Office of Radiation Safety and Security established under section 8; “orphan source” means a radioactive source which is not under regulatory control, either because it has never been under 12 regulatory control or because it has been abandoned, lost, misplaced, stolen or otherwise transferred without a proper “practice” means any human activity that introduces sources of exposure or additional exposure pathways, or extends exposure to additional people, or modifies the network of exposure pathways from existing sources so as to increase the exposure or the likelihood of exposure of people or the number of people exposed; “radiation safety plan” means a plan submitted under section 15 which demonstrate how the applicant intends to comply with the fundamental safety principles that apply to radiation sources; and any other requirements of this Act, the regulations, and any condition of the licence; “radiation generator” means a device capable of generating ionizing radiation, such as X-rays, neutrons, electrons, or other charged particles that may be used for scientific, industrial or medical purposes; “radiation source” means anything that may cause radiation exposure by emitting ionizing radiation or by releasing radioactive substances or materials and can be treated as a single entity for protection and safety purposes; “radioactive material” means– (a) material subject to regulatory control by the Office because of its radioactivity; (b) for the purposes of transport, material containing radionuclides where both the activity concentration and total activity in the consignment exceeds the values set out in Regulations made under section 80; and Radiation Safety and Security [CAP. 330:0113 (c) any material that spontaneously emits ionizing radiation, including any naturally occurring radioactive material or any nuclear material; “radioactive source” means a source containing radioactive material that is used as a source of radiation; “radioactive waste” means waste that contains or is contaminated with, radionuclides at concentrations or activities greater than clearance levels as established by the Office; “radioactive waste management” means all administrative and operational activities involved in the handling, pre-treatment, treatment, conditioning, transport, storage and disposal of “radioactive waste management facility” means a facility, the primary purpose of which is radioactive waste management, and which is licenced under Part IV; “regulatory control” means any form of control or regulation applied to facilities, activities or practices by the Office for reasons relating to safety and radiation protection or to nuclear “safety” means the protection of people and the environment against radiation risks, and the safety of facilities and activities that give rise to radiation risks; “nuclear security” means the prevention of, detection of, and response to, criminal or intentional unauthorized acts involving or directed at nuclear material, other radioactive material, associated facilities, or associated activities; “Nuclear Security Plan” means the primary documentation describing the physical protection system intended to meet the requirements specified by the Office, and specifies the information in the security plan that needs to be protected as sensitive information and how it should be protected; 14 “Safeguards Agreement” means the Agreement signed on March 1, 1997 between the Government of Belize and the IAEA for the Application of Safeguards in connection with the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons; and “transport” means the deliberate physical movement of radioactive material from one place to another.