Olympic-style First: Hanford Contractors Pass the Glass

Workers recently transferred three containers of non-radioactive test glass from the Hanford Site's Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant to the nearby Integrated Disposal Facility.

RICHLAND, Wash. - On the heels of the Summer Olympics, two Hanford Site contractors have finished a first-time relay of test glass while preparing for a giant leap forward in the cleanup mission.

Working under the Direct-Feed Low-Activity Waste Program, the whole site is preparing to start 24/7 operations to treat radioactive waste from large underground tanks by immobilizing it in glass for safe disposal.

Workers with Bechtel National Inc. started the relay when they loaded large containers of non-radioactive test glass on a specially designed trailer at the Low-Activity Waste Facility in the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). They drove it to a nearby staging area. Central Plateau Cleanup Company took the baton and drove the containers to the site's Integrated Disposal Facility.

Mat Irwin, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management's acting assistant manager for the WTP Project, noted the training runs using test glass are important qualifiers for the One Hanford team.

"Moving the containers allowed the contractors to practice the transfer process and provided the disposal facility with containers for additional training," Irwin said. "The relays move at the deliberate and methodical pace required in our work to protect people and the environment."

The test glass in the containers was poured from one of the 300-ton melters in the treatment plant's Low-Activity Waste Facility that will vitrify tank waste.

Vitrification is mixing liquid radioactive waste with glass-forming materials and heating them to 2,100 degrees in a melter. The melting incorporates the waste in the glass. The molten glass is poured into containers and allowed to solidify and cool.

After using containers of test glass for training at the disposal facility, Hanford will send them to a hazardous waste landfill in Oregon for disposal.

When operations begin vitrifying low-activity tank waste, contractors will relay more than 200,000 containers of waste immobilized in glass from the treatment plant to safe disposal in Hanford's Integrated Disposal Facility.

Learn more about Hanford waste treatment and disposal at the Hanford Virtual Tour.