Large Metallic Waste at Dounreay

Posted: 13th May 2022

Alternative waste route found for Dounreay’s bulk metal items. Two large redundant items that were removed from Dounreay’s facilities have now left the site for disposal or diversion, opening up new waste routes. Dounreay in partnership with Nuclear Waste Services and its contractor Cyclife first trialled an alternative treatment option for the site’s metallic waste in 2019, when 66 tonnes of redundant metal equipment were sent to Cyclife’s specialist facility for recycling. Following this successful trial, a flask adaptor plug weighing 10 tonnes recently left site for the recycling facility. Dounreay is also trialling other waste routes that are available when recycling is not feasible. This includes disposal of a redundant supercompactor unit, removed from a waste facility in 2011, which has now been successfully transported offsite for disposal in a suitable licensed landfill site in England. This is a new offsite disposal option that will enable Dounreay to dispose of items with low specific activity that are not suitable for recycling due to the presence of other hazardous substances or disposal within the low-level waste vaults. To make this happen, Dounreay has collaborated with Nuclear Waste Services, Cyclife UK Ltd, a strategic waste partner and Augean, the landfill owner. These new waste routes will minimise the number of low-level waste vaults that the site will need as it is decommissioned.