Workers at Sellafield in the UK have removed 100 tonnes of contaminated, redundant equipment from the oldest fuel storage pond at the site.
The 60-year-old pond, known as the pile fuel storage pond, is being emptied as part of a plan to clean up and decommission the oldest nuclear facilities in the UK.
The metal waste retrieved from the ageing facility is the equivalent in weight of a blue whale or a Boeing 757 aircraft. The remains a further 650 tonnes of contaminated metal to be retrieved from the pond, a statement said.
The pond was initially built to store fuel from the Windscale Pile reactors, whose primary focus was producing plutonium for the UK’s nuclear deterrent.