Introduction
Waste Management Technology Limited (WMT) is a leading provider of independent radioactive waste management services to the UK and overseas nuclear market.

Few companies in the UK can offer similar depth and breadth of resource and expertise and indeed, no single company offers the same comprehensive radioactive waste management capabilities.

WMT is able to provide a full range of services for radioactive waste management and decommissioning (both LLW and ILW), including:
• Waste management assessments and consultancy studies
• Waste sampling and characterisation
• Advanced waste treatment processes
• Recycling, recovery and recategorisation (e.g.detritiation)
• Waste packaging and immobilisation
• Impact and fire testing of transport packages
• Radioactive materials transport
• Analytical and radiochemistry
• High temperature chemistry
• Waste management plant optimisation, design review and validation

WMT is able to provide a highly specialised and fully integrated approach to delivering solutions across the waste management cycle.

WMT has wide experience of the UK regulatory requirements for both plant and processes, including the NDA LoC, specifications and disposal concept, the safety requirements for a nuclear licensed site and environmental regulation and legislation.

The business has longstanding, well-established relationships with all of the leading operators in the UK nuclear industry as well as many overseas organisations spanning over 25 years.

WMT’s Winfrith site is unique in terms of both its technology, facilities and its radioactive discharge authorisations.

MERCURY DECONTAMINATION
WMT has developed a mercury decontamination process that has been used to decontaminate elemental mercury contaminated with alpha and beta emitting radionuclides.

The process comprises 3 stages. These are:
• Pin-hole filtration to remove solid contaminants;
• Acid washing of extended duration to remove soluble contaminants;
• Mercury distillation, to be used as a final polishing step.

For any new mercury waste stream WMT undertakes evaluation trials to ensure the process is both effective and optimised. As an example more than one acid wash maybe required to remove all the soluble contamination.

WMT has fully equipped radiochemical analysis facilities that allow the mercury to be characterised at all stages of the decontamination process.

Upon decontamination WMT transfers the cleaned mercury to a commercial mercury recycling company, an EA approved disposal route . Secondary waste, such as contaminated acid wash liquor is processed and disposed of using WMT’s established disposal routes.

Track Record
WMT has decontaminated more than 4 tonnes of contaminated mercury. The most recent project being the decontamination and free release of 1.25 tonnes of mercury contaminated with tritium.