Radiation Protection Bill

Bill No. 34/1990

Read the first time on 9th November 1990.
An Act to control and regulate the importation, manufacture, sale, disposal, transport, storage, possession and use of radioactive materials and irradiating apparatus and for matters connected therewith; and to repeal the Radiation Protection Act (Chapter 262 of the 1985 Revised Edition).
Be it enacted by the President with the advice and consent of the Parliament of Singapore, as follows:
PART I
PRELIMINARY
Short title and commencement
1.  This Act may be cited as the Radiation Protection Act 1990 and shall come into operation on such date as the Minister may, by notification in the Gazette, appoint.
Interpretation
2.  In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires —
“approved” means approved in writing by the Director;
“authorised officer” means any authorised officer appointed under section 3;
“Committee” means the Radiation Advisory Committee established under section 4;
“diagnostic radiologist” means a registered medical practitioner who holds any post-graduate degree, diploma or qualification in diagnostic radiology which is approved by the Minister for the purposes of this Act;
“Director” means the Director of Radiation Protection appointed under section 3;
“disposal”, in relation to waste, includes its removal, deposit or destruction, and includes its discharge, whether onto land or into water or into air or into a sewer or a drain or otherwise, and also includes its burial, whether underground or otherwise, and “dispose of” shall be construed accordingly;
“export”, with its grammatical variations and cognate expressions, in relation to Singapore, means to take or cause to be taken out of Singapore by land, sea or air;
“fuel burning equipment” includes a nuclear fuel plant;
“import”, with its grammatical variations and cognate expressions, in relation to Singapore, means to bring, or cause to be brought into Singapore by land, sea or air;
“in transit” means taken or sent from any country and brought into Singapore by land, sea or air whether or not landed or transhipped in Singapore for the sole purpose of being carried to another country either by the same or by another conveyance;
“ionising radiations” means electromagnetic radiations and corpuscular radiations which give rise to the formation of ion pairs on interaction with matter;
“irradiating apparatus” means —
(a)any apparatus that is capable of producing ionising radiation;
(b)any apparatus of a prescribed type that is capable of producing non-ionising radiation; and
(c)any component of or accessory to an apparatus described in paragraph (a) or (b);
“licence” means a valid licence granted under section 9;
“licensee” means the holder of a licence;
“non-ionising radiations” means electromagnetic radiations and fields with wavelengths greater than 100 nanometers and all accoustic radiations and fields with frequencies below 16 Hz and above 16 kHz;
“nuclear medicine specialist” means a registered medical practitioner who holds a post-graduate degree, diploma or qualification in internal medicine or radiology which is approved by the Minister for the purposes of this Act and has two or more years of full-time work experience in an accredited nuclear medical department;
“premises” includes messuages, houses, buildings and lands, whether open or enclosed, and whether public or private, and includes any place underground and any land covered by water;
“prescribed” means prescribed by this Act or by regulations made thereunder;
“radiation” means ionising radiation or non-ionising radiation;
“radioactive material” means any article containing a radioactive substance giving it a specific radioactivity exceeding 74 becquerel per gram and a total radioactivity exceeding 3.7 kilobecquerel;
“radioactive substance” means a radionuclide or mixture of radionuclides, either alone or in chemical combination with other elements;
“radioactive waste” means any waste which consists wholly or partly of —
(a)the substance or article which, if it were not waste, would be radioactive material; or
(b)a substance or article which has been contaminated in the course of the production, keeping or use of radioactive material or by contact with, or proximity to other waste falling within paragraph (a);
“radionuclide” means an isotope of any element which spontaneously emits any ionising radiation;
“registered dentist” means any person who is registered as a dentist in the first division of the register maintained under section 5 of the Dentists Act [Cap. 76];
“registered medical practitioner” means any person who is registered or deemed to be registered as a medical practitioner under the Medical Registration Act [Cap. 174];
“registered pharmacist” means any person who is registered as a pharmacist under the Pharmacists Registration Act [Cap. 230];
“sell” includes supplying or otherwise dealing in or disposing of, whether by way of sale, loan or gift, or offering or attempting to sell, or receiving for sale, or exposing for sale, or having in possession for sale, or sending or delivering for sale, or causing to be sold, offered or exposed for sale and also includes barter, and “sale”, “buying”, “vendor” and “purchaser” shall have corresponding meanings;
“therapeutic radiologist” means a registered medical practitioner who holds any post-graduate degree, diploma or qualification in therapeutic radiology which is approved by the Minister for the purposes of this Act;
“veterinary surgeon” means —
(a)a person who holds a degree, diploma or qualification in veterinary science which is approved by the Minister for the purposes of this Act; or
(b)any veterinary surgeon employed by the Government.