SRS resumes shipments of remote-handled transuranic waste to WIPP

[Marlin]

SRS resumes shipments of remote-handled transuranic waste to WIPP

https://www.ans.org/news/2026-09-10/article-8378/srs-resumes-shipments-of-remotehandled-transuranic-waste-to-wipp/

[Core Content]

The Savannah River Site completed its first shipment of remote-handled transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in more than ten years. The resumed operations utilize newly developed, lead-lined steel containers designed to safely transport high-radiation legacy materials. Facility operators are currently preparing approximately 150 additional waste drums for transport to the New Mexico repository.

A new type of heavy-duty shielded container is being used to ship remote-handled legacy transuranic waste from the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management announced this week that the first shipment using the new packaging was successfully...

TRU waste: Transuranic waste consists of such materials as clothing, tools, rags, residues, and debris contaminated with alpha-emitting transuranic radionuclides—that is, elements that have an atomic number greater than that of uranium. Most of it originates from nuclear weapons production and other defense-related activities. Because of the long half-lives of these elements, TRU waste cannot be disposed of as either low-level or intermediate-level waste, but neither is it high-level waste.

Read the full article at ans.org:
https://www.ans.org/news/2026-09-10/article-8378/srs-resumes-shipments-of-remotehandled-transuranic-waste-to-wipp/