Australia may have to stop producing nuclear medicine if it cannot find a central site to dump all of the radioactive rubbish made in the process in the next decade.

Key points: A number of waste disposal sites are "getting full", Industry Department head says

A number of waste disposal sites are "getting full", Industry Department head says Government has been trying to find site to dump nuclear waste for 30 years

Government has been trying to find site to dump nuclear waste for 30 years OPAL reactor powers scientific research, used to make drugs to treat cancers

Radioactive waste is currently stored in about 100 different sites across Australia, including at universities, hospitals, government departments and the CSIRO.

But Bruce Wilson, the head of resources at the Department of Industry, said space was filling up.

"A number of those are getting full and many of those sites are not built for long-term disposal of radioactive waste," he said.

The Federal Government has been trying to find a site somewhere in Australia to dump nuclear waste for 30 years, including all the waste produced by the government-owned OPAL reactor at Lucas Heights.

There is about 4,250 cubic metres of radioactive waste in Australia — nearly enough to fill two Olympic-sized swimming pools — and most of it is held at the Australian Nuclear Science Technology Organisation (ANSTO) at Lucas Heights.

"Is it desperately urgent as in does the site [have to be built] right now? Probably not," Mr Wilson said.

"But we need to do something in the next 10 years, because we can't continue to stack this waste up in the shed forever."

Australia's future as nuclear medicine manufacturer at risk

The OPAL reactor powers scientific research, and is also used to make radiopharmaceuticals, which are used to diagnose diseases and to treat certain cancers.

"If you think about the biggest challenges in health in the western world, such as cardiac disease and forms of heart disease, and cancer in many forms, there wouldn't be a family touched by those," said Shaun Jenkinson, the group executive for Nuclear Business at ANSTO.

"That is where nuclear medicine plays a really strong part, those big diseases that affect Western countries."

About 80 per cent of the nuclear medicine made at ANSTO goes into diagnosing diseases, while 20 per cent is used to make drugs to treat cancers.

"This includes Iodine 131, which is a radioactive material that targets cancer in the thyroid and then helps destroy that cancer and improve survival rates," Mr Jenkinson said.

The TN81 cask at the ANSTO facility at Lucas Heights holds nuclear waste from Australia's first nuclear reactor. ( ABC News: Marty McCarthy )

About 85 per cent of the radioactive rubbish at ANSTO comes from the manufacturing of these medicines, and the bulk of this waste is items contaminated in the manufacturing process, such as gloves and other protective gear, syringes and pipettes.

The waste is known as low-level radioactive waste, and is currently stored in sheds on site, but the facility is running out of room.

Mr Wilson said if a solution could not be found soon, Australia may have to reconsider its future as a manufacturer of nuclear medicine.

"If we don't get a solution ultimately there is a question around if we continue to have the reactor at Lucas Heights, or whether we continue to produce the incredibly important nuclear medicines that one in two Australians benefit from," Mr Wilson said.

"We are not saying that would stop today, we are not saying nuclear medicine access would stop in future.

"But Australia gets an enormous benefit out of producing its own nuclear medicines, and if we have to import them then our supply chain becomes more vulnerable, our costs will go up considerably, and we will also lose access to certain medicines.

"So there is enormous good reasons to continue the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights for the research and medical products in generates."

James Hardiman is leader of waste operations at ANSTO. ( ABC News: Marty McCarthy )

While most of the waste held at Lucas Heights is low-level waste left over from making nuclear medicine, the facility also stores a small amount of intermediate-level waste.

This waste comes from the spent fuel rods used in Australia's first nuclear reactor, HIFAR, which operated for 50 years and was decommissioned in 2007.

The TN81 cask is a 120-tonne rubbish bin that currently contains more than half of the waste from 2,000 spent fuel rods used in HIFAR over its half-a-century-lifespan.

"This does actually represent one of the more radioactive things in Australia," said James Hardiman, waste operations manager at ANSTO.

"It is known as best practice around the world that it is safest and most controlled when all of the waste from hundreds of sites can be centrally controlled and disposed of at one site."

'It's for Kimba we are doing this'

The rural town of Kimba, in South Australia, could be the eventual home of all of Australia's nuclear waste.

Two farmers in the region have put forward their properties, along with a third at Barndioota in the Flinders Ranges, for the Federal Government to build its facility on.

The site would be a permanent dump for all of the low-level waste, which would be buried in cement chambers and left for 300 years, and a temporary storage site for the more dangerous, intermediate-level waste.

"There's no liquids, there's no gases, so there is nothing to leak, so we don't see an issue," local farmer Jeff Baldock said.

"When I first put the property up for nomination, the first time I went in to Kimba afterwards I felt physically sick walking down the street and wondering what people would say about us."

A paddock 15 kilometres from Kimba that could be the eventual dump site for Australia's nuclear waste. ( ABC News: Marty McCarthy )

Mr Baldock said he put forward his property to secure the future of his town, which is struggling with population decline as government services and business move to larger regional centres.

"To guarantee your town's future for the next 300 years is pretty good reason for me, because they are talking 100 years of storing the waste and 300 years of monitoring," he said.

To put that into perspective, European settlement in Australia was less than 300 years ago.

"You've got a Federal Government looking after your town for 300 years, what a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you would have the ear of the Federal Government," Mr Baldock said.

Bob Maitland, who owns farmland next to Mr Baldock's property, said he had a moral obligation to support his neighbour's nuclear dump plan.

"Someone has got to take the waste because we all produce it. My wife has just had a breast cancer operation and she produced it then there and then," Mr Maitland said.

"It's for Kimba we are doing this, not for ourselves."

See the story on Landline on ABC TV, Sunday at noon.