The Radioactive Substances (Clocks and Watches) (England and Wales) Regulations 2001

Statutory Instruments

2001 No. 4005

RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES, ENGLAND AND WALES

The Radioactive Substances (Clocks and Watches) (England and Wales) Regulations 2001

Made

13th December 2001

Laid before Parliament

17th December 2001

Coming into force

14th January 2002

The Secretary of State, being a Minister designated(1) for the purposes of section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972(2) in relation to safety measures in regard to radioactive substances and the emission of ionising radiation, in exercise of the powers conferred by section 2(2) of that Act, hereby makes the following Regulations:

Citation, commencement and extent

1.—(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Radioactive Substances (Clocks and Watches) (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 and shall come into force on 14th January 2002.

(2) These Regulations extend only to England and Wales.

Amendment of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993

2.—(1) Section 15 (further exemptions from sections 13 and 14) of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993(3) shall be amended as follows.

(2) In subsection (1), after “clocks or watches” (where those words first occur) insert “on or from any premises in the circumstances described in subsection (1A)”.

(3) After subsection (1) insert–

“(1A) The circumstances referred to in subsection (1) are that—

(a) no radionuclide other than tritium, promethium 147 or radium 226 is present in any clock or watch on the premises (whether or not any radioactive waste arises from it),

(b) no such clock or watch contains more than one of those radionuclides, and

(c) either subsection (1B) or subsection (1C) is satisfied.

(1B) This subsection is satisfied if the total quantity of tritium divided by 10⁹, plus the total quantity of promethium 147 divided by 10⁷, plus the total quantity of radium 226 divided by 10⁴, in all such clocks and watches does not exceed 1 (quantity in each case being measured in becquerels).

(1C) This subsection is satisfied if—

(a) all such clocks and watches fall within a description specified in the first column of the Table below;

(b) radioactive waste arises from no more than five of them; and

(c) none of them gives rise to a quantity of radioactive waste exceeding the figure in the third column of the Table corresponding to the relevant radionuclide listed in the second column.

Table

Description of clock or watch	Radionuclide	Relevant quantity (in becquerels)
(i) Clocks or watches having their dials marked at the time of manufacture with “T 25” (Tritium), “Pm 0.5” (Promethium 147) or “Ra 1.5” (Radium 226)	Tritium Promethium 147 Radium 226	9.3 x 108 1.9 x 107 5.6 x 104
(ii) Clocks bearing radioluminescent deposits and not falling within category (i)	Tritium Promethium 147 Radium 226	3.7 x 108 7.4 x 106 7.4 x 103
(iii) Watches bearing radioluminescent deposits and not falling within category (i)	Tritium Promethium 147 Radium 226	2.8 x 108 5.5 x 106 5.6 x 103
(iv) Watches containing small sealed glass tubes internally coated with a phosphor and filled with tritium gas	Tritium	7.4 x 109”

Michael Meacher

Minister of State

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

13th December 2001

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

Section 13(1) and (3) of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 require an authorisation for the disposal of radioactive waste on or from any premises used for the purposes of an undertaking. Section 14 of the Act requires an authorisation for the accumulation of radioactive waste on premises with a view to its disposal. Section 15 of the Act exempts certain radioactive waste from clocks and watches from those requirements.

These Regulations, which extend to England and Wales only and are made in order to implement in part article 5(1) of the Basic Safety Standards Directive (Council Directive 96/29 Euratom), amend section 15 so as to limit the exemption from authorisation for clocks and watches. It will now be confined to cases where only tritium, promethium or radium is present, and either the amount of radionuclides on premises does not exceed the limits in section 15(1B), or the waste is from no more than five clocks or watches none of which exceed the limits in section 15(1C).

(1)

S.I. 1977/1718.

(2)

1972 c. 68; section 2(2) was amended by the Scotland Act 1998 (c. 46), Schedule 8 paragraph 15(3). The function conferred upon the Minister of the Crown under section 2(2) of the 1972 Act, so far as within devolved competence, was transferred to the Scottish Ministers by virtue of section 53 of the 1998 Act.

(3)

1993 c. 12.