As of Dec. 31, 2025, the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site had filled 26 containers with glass converted from some of the site’s less-radioactive tank waste.
DOE’s Hanford Site “has processed/poured 113 metric tons of glass,” a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Ecology, the state regulator, said Wednesday. The glass was formed from 37,435 gallons of liquid tank waste along with additives used in the vitrification process at the Bechtel-built plant, the spokesperson said.
The 26-containers, confirmed by DOE, are four more than when site officials last communicated on the progress of the operation in early December.
In October, the long-awaited WTP Direct-Feed-Low-Activity Waste (DFLAW) Facilities went live at the Hanford Site at Richland, Wash. Vitrification of the liquid waste into glass marks the culmination of about 25 years of work and billions of dollars in costs.
Hanford has roughly 56 million gallons of liquid radioactive and hazardous waste held in 177 underground tanks. The waste is the byproduct of decades of plutonium production at Hanford.