Solid Waste/Residue Handling

DOE-HDBK-3010-94

Appendix B; Plutonium Recovery Facility

The racks are four positions high and provide a total of 114 storage positions. The vault is

reserved for storing buttons (nominally 78 positions) or selected high assay wastes that are to

be processed for recovery (nominally 36 positions). The buttons are double canned, while

the residues will be double wrapped in plastic and contained in sealed, hard plastic pails.

The shelving design maintains a safe separation between the stored units for criticality limits

larger than the administrative/design flowsheet limits for buttons or high assay residues.

2.2.3.2 S olid W aste/R esid u e H an d lin g

Glovebox waste is removed through airlocks or bagports in a 12-mil PVC bag sealed with

plastic tape. The waste is placed inside another plastic bag that is sealed with tape, and the

entire package is placed in a 5-gallon pail that is sealed with tape. Readings are taken with a

portable monitor at the generation point to verify limits have not been exceeded in the

package, in which case it would have to be reintroduced into the glovebox and broken down

into several waste packages.

Lag storage for waste pails that have not been assayed is available in the drumming area. A

small room is equipped with two high storage racks along the wall with a maximum storage

capacity of 25 pails. An adjacent room has two 3 high racks with 40 spaces for lag storage

of assayed pails. Up to 20 additional pails can be stored if necessary in marked positions

along unused walls in corridors within the regulated area.

The waste drumming room contains a pulsed high analyzer (PHA) that is used for assay

measurement of waste pails. This room also contains a ventilated waste hut where workers

in protective suits remove assayed waste bags from the plastic pails and place them in DOT-

approved 55-gallon drums. These drums are then sealed and subsequently smeared to verify

no surface contamination is present on the drum. They are then moved to the drum counting

station for confirmatory measurement of plutonium content.

The drum counting room makes use of two separate NDA instruments. A control computer

for the two devices combines the results via an operator-selected algorithm based on type of

waste assayed to produce a single value estimate. About 20 drums can be temporarily stored

in the floorspace of the drum assay room, but normal practice is to move the drums to the

TRU waste storage building soon after completion of assay.

Low-level solid waste that is generated largely outside the gloveboxes or in maintenance

activities is either placed in drums or in fire retardant treated wooden boxes. The boxes are

generally reserved for waste activities that can be expected to fill a complete box. These

materials are temporarily stored in the hallways of the TRU waste storage building until they

are removed for disposal.

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