The proper disposing of Nuclear Waste has been a growing problem for many states and countries around the world. I have worked at our nuclear power plant in Arkansas (Arkansas Nuclear One) and there were discussions that took place about how and where to store the material in a safe place without exposing the public to hazardous waste.
I often wondered if some of the material could be burned without releasing radiation to the public and used fuel rods are heated in a fiery furnace and shredded into scrap metal which would be a new way of disposing of nuclear waste material. There may be a state or country that would like to take on the challenge of changing the material into a new form for disposing.
Most states do not want Nuclear Waste buried in their states even if it is out in the desert or in steel cast-iron containers which are said to not leak radiation to the soil or water supply which could be harmful to citizens and our environment, if exposed.
I hope this is part of the solution to the problem; however this is my opinion and this is a straightdope message board.
For the rest, I am not sure of what you are getting at. Neither burning nor reforging will do anything to remove radiation, and both present hazards of their own, including the possibility of flash fission in the latter case.
Curiously, this article has been revised since being written - originally done in 1982 but contains dates up to 1995 - but doesn’t mention Synroc or other entombment methods, not to mention such exotica as dumping in subduction zones or into the sun.
Dehydrate Fuel Rods and pour an acid mixture over them so that rods will dry out and break easily like bones in our bodies. Then they will crumble and take up less space or dispose of them if they are free of radiation. Of course this is a straighdope message board and I am a dumb blonde.
Fissionable materials react when there is more than a certain amount of the stuff gathered together in one place. Thats all it takes. The only hard part about making a bomb (given the materials) is that it will normally just go “foof!”, possibly giving a lethal dose of radation to anyone near it, but not really exploding. In order to make a bomb, you need to use chemical explosives to smash the stuff together fast and hard enough, just as, to make an H-bomb, you have to use a regular A-bomb to smash the fusionable material together.