Towards the identification of work activities involving NORM in Italy

Publisher Summary In Italy, the EU Basic Safety Standards have been implemented by means of a legislative decree (n◦ 241/2000) that provides the implementation of regulations for controlling the radiation exposure resulting due to a certain set of industrial activities involving NORM. Research aimed at estimating the environmental impact of some activities dealing with NORM is being carried out by a group of Environmental Protection Regional Agencies (ARPA) within the National Topic Centre on Physical Agents (CTN-AGF). This chapter describes the results of this first review together with some radioactivity assessments and impact predictions performed to understand better the size of the problem for the case of industrial processes. In summary, phosphogypsum is no longer produced in the national phosphate industry, but past disposal areas occur throughout the country; intense work activities are recorded for all Italian sections of fertilizer production, zircon sand processing, integrated steel-working, hydrocarbon extraction and coal-fired energy production. Two closed uranium mines also exist.