UK to dispose of radioactive plutonium stockpile

Posted: 25th January 2025

An exterior shot of Sellafield Cumbria the nuclear site where 140 tonnes of plutonium is currently stored The picture shows green grass and scrub in the foreground and a little further back an industrial plant with pylons and silver-grey towers and a large round structure in the background against a mottled sky of clouds with some blue sky and sunshine poking through

IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

140 tonnes of plutonium is currently being stored at Sellafield, the nuclear site in Cumbria

Victoria Gill

Science correspondent, BBC News

Published

24 January 2025

The government says it will dispose of its 140 tonnes of radioactive plutonium – currently stored at a secure facility at Sellafield in Cumbria.

The UK has the world’s largest stockpile of the hazardous material, which is a product of nuclear fuel reprocessing.

It has been kept at the site and has been piling up for decades in a form that would allow it to be recycled into new nuclear fuel.

But the government has now decided that it will not be reused and instead says it wants to put the hazardous material “beyond reach” and made ready for permanent disposal deep underground.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjr8lzyg299o#">::text=The%20government%20says%20it%20will,product….