Plutonium Contaminated Waste Materials From Storage

Plutonium Contaminated Material (PCM) originating from the early 1950s operations was placed for storage in magazines at Drigg situated about 6km from Sellafield. A program to retrieve the PCM from the Drigg site has been under way since 1976. This has included the design and procurement of purpose-built facilities. Retrieval of the drummed waste was undertaken first. A procedure was developed whereby a re-usable module was sealed to the face of each magazine in tum to allow operators access without breaching containment in the magazine. Each drum was then individually checked, over drummed or bagged, checked free of contamination, relabeled, surface dose rate recorded, and assayed for fissile material content.