The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said Monday it had successfully delivered four flasks of vitrified highly active waste to Würenlingen, Switzerland, on Thursday.
Delivered to Swiss utilities AXPO AG and BKW Energie, the material represents the second and final shipment of vitrified waste between the two countries under the U.K.’s vitrified residue returns program. According to transport contractor AREVA, the containers arrived in four transport casks (each with 28 containers) at the Zwilag interim storage facility.
The waste return program is the U.K.’s approach to repatriating highly active waste to its country of origin. This material in this shipment was the byproduct of reprocessing and recycling activity at the Sellafield site in the U.K., where fuel from Swiss nuclear reactors was shipped. The first waste delivery to Switzerland was completed in September 2015.
“This is the completion of the third European return of highly active waste from Sellafield, and continues the programme of successful overseas returns,” Sellafield Ltd. VRR Program Manager Will Watson said in a statement Monday. “I’d like to say a big thank you to all the teams at Sellafield Ltd and INS who form the VRR Programme and have achieved another milestone in the government strategy to return highly active waste to overseas customers.”
Sellafield Ltd. is wholly owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The company collaborated on the shipment with fellow NDA subsidiary International Nuclear Services (INS), which contracted AREVA to manage overland transportation of the material. The vessel transporting the waste departed from the port of Barrow-in-Furness on Oct. 7, arriving days later in Cherbourg, France, where it was unloaded and prepared for rail shipment to Switzerland.
