25 March 2026

As noted in CCRCA’s May 2021 letter to the then-Minister of Natural Resources, Seamus O-Reagan: (see full letter below)

Canadian companies such as Nordion, Best Theratronics, and SRB Technologies are doing a brisk trade in waste imports in the form of disused sealed sources and expired self-luminous tritium devices.. These companies do not necessarily limit their imports to devices of their own manufacture. Imported radioactive wastes are being sent to CRL, where they become the property of the Government of Canada.

This begs the question: Are Canadian taxpayers on the hook to cover the full costs of looking after this waste in perpetuity? There is no easy answer to this question.

Canada’s national reports to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management have information on disused radioactive sources. The nuclear substances found in these radiation-emitting devices undergo decay. At some point the devices are no longer sufficiently radioactive for their original purpose, such as sterilizing equipment. But they still emit highly dangerous amounts of radiation and must be managed carefully as radioactive waste.

Best Theratronics, a company based in Kanata, Ontario, has a growing inventory of disused radioactive sources. Canada’s Eighth National Report to the Joint Convention shows that as of December 31, 2023, the activity of disused cobalt-60 and cesium-137 sources was 191 Terabecquerels (TBq). The Seventh National Report showed an activity value of 71 TBq as of December 31, 2019.

A Terabecquerel is the quantity of a radioactive substance that gives off a trillion radioactive disintegrations each second—a very large amount.

Best Theratronics periodically sends its highly radioactive waste to Chalk River Laboratories. Chalk River is Canada’s largest publicly-owned energy research facility, and Canada’s major licensed commercial radioactive waste storage facility. A private company called Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) manages Chalk River, under a $24 billion government contract with the three U.S. corporations that own CNL. 

At a 2019 hearing before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), Canada’s nuclear regulator, the owner of Best Theratronics reported that “In 2014, we had a resident inventory of disused sources at Nordion. All of that has now been disposed of at CNL… So I can report that all those legacy sources, which is over 500 sources, cobalt and cesium, have been successfully removed from our license.”

Nordion is another private company that manufactures and exports radioactive sources, and that imports disused sources from around the world. Located in Kanata next to Best Theratronics, Nordion has also been increasing its inventory of radioactive waste disused sources. Its December 2023 inventory of 5,468 Terabecquerels of cobalt-60 was up from 4,126 Terabecquerels in 2019.

Canada’s Policy for Radioactive Waste Management and Decommissioning says that “radioactive sources that were not from Canada may be brought to Canada.” Under this policy, Nordion and Best Theratronics engage in a brisk trade in radioactive waste.

This radioactive waste, much of it imported from other countries, is sent to Chalk River. CNL plans to dispose of all the commercial waste at Chalk River in a million-cubic-metre landfill called the NSDF. The maximum activity of cobalt-60 that the NSDF could safely accommodate (according to Waste Acceptance Criteria developed jointly by CNL and CNSC) is 9,060 Terabecquerels. This is roughly twice the combined cobalt-60 inventory of Nordion and Best Theratronics. The NSDF would provide them with a “solution” for their imported radioactive waste cobalt-60 devices, at public expense. 

CNL has stated its intent to put all the commercial waste that is sent to Chalk River into the NSDF. But the waste acceptance criteria for the landfill, which supposedly represent protective limits, could be exceeded by a very large amount. Results of a 2019 ATIP request illustrate this risk

Nordion was sold to an American company in 2014. It is now owned by Sotera Health, headquartered in Broadview Heights, Ohio. The 2019 ATIP results show that Nordion sent a waste shipment to Chalk River in 2018 with 34 Terabecquerels of niobium-94. With a half-life of of 20,300 years, niobium-94 poses a major long-term radioactive hazard. This single shipment contained over 1400 times the maximum activity of niobium-94 that would be allowed in the NSDF. The NSDF Waste Acceptance Criteria allow only 23.4 Gigabecquerels, or 0.0234 Terabecquerels.  

Other American-owned companies shipped radioactive waste to Chalk River during the 2014-2018 period, including Permafix NW, headquartered in Richland, Washington, which made seven waste shipments totalling 8.3 tonnes; BWXT Nuclear Energy, owned by BWX Technologies in Lynchburg, Virginia; and Energy Solutions, owned by TriArtisan Partners in New York City.

Results of the ATIP request show that Energy Solutions shipped 68 Gigabecquerels of radium-226 (half-life of 1600 years) to Chalk River. This is nearly twice the maximum activity of 37 Gigabecquerels that would be allowed in the NSDF. 

Americium-241 is another highly dangerous radioactive substance, with a half life of 432 years. The maximum activity that would be allowed in the NSDF is 60.4 Gigabecquerels. The ATIP results show that two Canadian-owned companies alone shipped nearly 70 times this maximum amount that would be allowed in the NSDF: 1063 Gigabecquerels from Noremtech, and 3114 Gigabecquerels from Stuart Hunt.

SRB Technologies, another Canadian company, imports expired glow-in-the-dark exit signs and other self-luminous devices from the U.S. After removing the tritium-filled tubes, SRB Technologies puts them in drums and sends them to Chalk River as waste.

The total activity of tritium contained in waste sent by SRB to Chalk River was 38,857 Terabecquerels. The maximum activity of tritium that could be put in the NSDF during its 50-year operating period is 891 Terabecquerels, a 44-fold lower amount. 

SRB, Nordion, and Best Theratronics import waste radioactive devices from foreign countries that they did not manufacture. Large quantities of foreign-origin radioactive waste, much of it highly radioactive, is shipped to Canada for storage and eventual disposal at Chalk River, where it becomes the responsibility of Canadian taxpayers.