Introduction

Due to the high costs of low level radioactive waste (LLW) disposal, many waste generating companies seek to reduce their costs through volume reduction of their wastes prior to disposal. In addition to this, it is now a requirement for LLW disposal at the Drigg national repository that compactable wastes are supercompacted, wherever possible. Waste Management Technology operates a mobile supercompaction operation, based at its Winfrith site, processing waste for external clients. Waste can either be transported to Winfrith for treatment, or the plant can be set up and operated on the client's site, as has happened in the UK and overseas for French, Belgian, Czech and Swiss wastes.

Waste Management Technology Service

Waste Management Technology operates a mobile supercompaction plant that is designed to process standard 200 litre waste drums. It has a maximum operating capacity of 2000 tonnes and a cycle time of approximately 4 minutes. The routine scope of supply includes drum and supercompacted puck handling equipment, puck measuring equipment, activity-in-air monitoring equipment and onward product transport.

To date over 90,000 drums have been processed. For UK waste, the compacted drums, or pucks, are monitored, measured, wrapped if required, and loaded into half height ISO transport containers (HISOs). For Winfrith operations, Waste Management Technology obtains all the necessary authorisations and transports the final waste container to the LLWR site in Cumbria for disposal.

Over the course of these campaigns, the average number of pucks loaded into an HISO container has been in excess of 190. The average volume reduction factor for the drums is in the region of 5.