<If we could ever get the price per kilo down to afford to ship waste no matter how important, we could afford to do fabulous things besides garbage hauling with that capacity. The nuke waste problem is vastly overstated anyway.

Right on the money. Not least of the benefits of a launch system that cheap would be the ability to launch and construct large space solar power stations.

High-level nuclear waste is heavy, and would have to be packed in shielded containers that could withstand a reentry and earth impact. While this could actually be done, believe it or not, the container would outweigh the waste by many times.

The proper thing to do is burn the high-level stuff in breeder reactors, and keep the rest in fortresses on military bases until a better idea comes up. At some point in the future it may be feasible to ship stuff like this into space routinely (space elevator, antigravity, whatever) but our current tech isn't up to it.

Besides, it would be a cold day in hell before the environmental movement would let you stick waste on a rocket. Look at the crap we get just over the plutonium generators on space probes. They would be particularly hostile if it looked like the method would work.