Introduction
LLW disposal facilities require wastes to be dry and high disposal costs mean that volume reduction of the wastes prior to disposal should be carried out wherever practical. These issues are generally common throughout the world. Waste Management Technology provides a service for the drying and supercompaction of wet low level wastes, processing the material for external clients. Waste can either be transported to Waste Management Technology’s Winfrith site for treatment, or either or both of the two plants can be set up and operated on the client's site.

Waste Management Technology Service
Waste Management Technology has established a drying & supercompaction service, for the treatment of wet LLW. The drying units available can accommodate a variety of package configurations, whilst the supercompaction plant is designed to process standard 200 litre waste drums. Waste Management Technology has access to a suite of drying units, with a maximum capacity of 30 off 200 litre waste drums; water contents well in excess of 50% w/w can be processed and the cycle time for a batch is 10-14 days. The supercompactor has a maximum operating force of 2000 tonnes. For UK waste, the drums are dried to less than 5% w/w water content, supercompacted, pucks monitored, measured, wrapped if required and loaded into half height ISO transport containers. Waste Management Technology obtains all the necessary authorisations and transports the final waste container to the LLWR site in Cumbria for disposal.

This process for wet wastes produces a waste form acceptable for LLW disposal with overall volume reduction factors for the drums in the region of 4, compared to the volume increase provided by conventional cementation.