We in Oz need to be careful about pointing the finger.It appears...

We in Oz need to be careful about pointing the finger.
It appears that we have had some of the finest politicians that Chinese government money can buy.

What annoys me is that in any discussion of repatriating LYC's waste back from Malaysia or pre-processing the stuff in Australia, it will be lost on those bereft of any science education, such as most of our politicians, that the total burden of reactivity is the same as it was when the stuff was in the ground.
The reason I say that is that the materials are only chemically processed and not subject to nuclear reactions.
The materials are not subject to any nuclear transmutation that might increase the total reactivity..
The radioactive atoms are unchanged by the mechanical and chemical processing from what they were when they were in the ground in WA.

Yes, if the material with the radioactive content is concentrated into a smaller volume then the intensity of radiation will go up in that vicinity but the total flux of radiation will be unchanged.
If the material was dispersed back into the hole from whence it came, essentially nothing will have changed provided that the material put back is no more chemically or physically mobile than it was originally.

cheers