Abstract. The basic strategies to decrease solid waste disposal problems have focused on the reduction of waste production and recovery of usable materials using waste and making raw materials. Generally, various materials have been used for radiation shielding in different areas and situations. In this study, a novel shielding material produced by a metallurgical solid waste containing lead has been analyzed in order to make a shielding material against gamma radiation. The photon total mass attenuation coefficients (µ/ρ) of the samples were measured experimentally and were calculated using WinXCom computer code, then theoretical and experimental values of total mass attenuation coefficient of each studied sample were compared with one another. Consequently, new shielding material made of solid waste containing lead is preferable as a shielding material against gamma radiation for buildings instead of concrete. Another goal of the paper is to obtain the optimum ratio of waste containing lead to achieve a balance between compressive strength and total mass attenuation coefficient. For this purpose an artificial neural network and genetic algorithm were used.