Negative effects of using transport definition classifications of radioactive material in lieu of impact assessments

In a region with limited nuclear industry and a low population density such as Australia, health physics has limited opportunity to develop as a dedicated role in many sectors including medical, health & safety and resources. This sparsity of professional radiation specialists and health physicists leads many non-nuclear industries, and in some cases regulators, to grasp at oversimplified models when defining acceptable practices with radioactive material. These include models such as the linear no threshold model (LNT) at very low exposure rates and IAEA (SSR-6) definitions of radioactive material during transport as a proxy for radiological risk. The models, while applicable for transport of competently prepared Class-7 dangerous goods packages, do not adequately assess the risk from sources such as low specific activity (LSA) and surface contaminated objects (SCO) that may not be captured as legally defined radioactive sources during transport. These may pose a significant radiological risk, such as when transport regulations drive health and environmental protection, i.e. disposal and bioaccumulation.