A vintage Electrolux vacuum has been uncovered inside Sellafield's locked nuclear vault, where it was sealed since the 1970s.
Operators at one of the world’s oldest and most inaccessible nuclear storage facilities were stunned to discover a 60-year-old radioactive vacuum cleaner after opening the site’s sealed nuclear vault, untouched since the 1970s.
The unexpected find, a vintage Electrolux once used to clean radioactive dust, was uncovered as teams at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, England, began routinely retrieving waste from the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo.Built at a time when long-term disposal planning was only starting to take shape, the silo became a repository for decades’ worth of radioactive material, much of it poorly recorded, in a structure never intended to be emptied.Now, after years of intense engineering effort, retrieval teams finally cracked the code to safely extract the waste stored in the silo’s six cavernous compartments.According to the UK government, the teams have already removed enough radioactive material to fill 18 stainless-steel storage boxes, with some of the discoveries being complete surprises.Retrieving radioactive historyThe 1960s household hoover was reportedly used to collect radioactive dust during the site’s operational life in the 1950s and 60s. Once it was no longer necessary, Sellafield’s original workforce had little choice but to consign it to the silo, alongside other contaminated industrial waste. “It’s a fantastic achievement to get to the point where we’re routinely retrieving waste from the buildup,” Sellafield Ltd.’s chief operating officer Roddy Miller said, underscoring the immense challenge of emptying a facility never designed to be cleared. “The vacuum cleaner is a great example of how challenging it is to clear this silo.” Miller explained that the team remains uncertain about what other items they might uncover in the silo. “They didn’t keep accurate records in those days,” he continued. Anything brought into the building by the workforce at the time was likely contaminated due to the hazardous environment they operated in. “There was no alternative disposal route for contaminated material, so everything just went into the silo,” Miller stated.The silo’s chaotic contents reflect a different era of nuclear operations, a time when contaminated equipment, tools, and even household appliances were simply sealed away permanently. Today, retrieving these forgotten relics is a delicate and high stakes operation that requires specialized technologies, remote handling systems, and significant patience.As work continues, a modern vacuum cleaner, currently used to capture dust during waste handling, will eventually meet the same fate as the one found from the 1960s. It will be treated as radioactive waste and stored permanently after its work is complete.Decommissioning in progressThe success at the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo marks a major step in Sellafield’s broader decommissioning mission which will take decades to fully complete. Alongside this facility, operators are also emptying a second silo and two open-air ponds that once stored spent nuclear fuel underwater. None of these structures were originally designed with retrieval or dismantling in mind, making each a unique and complex challenge.Operators in the control room of Sellafield’s Pile Fuel Cladding Silo.Credit: Sellafield“For the first time in our history, we’re routinely retrieving waste from all 4 of our legacy ponds and silos,” Miller stated, highlighting that added that it marked an incredibly important milestone in their journey to clean up the site, but there is still a lot of work to be done. “But there’s a lot of work yet to do and these four facilities will continue to challenge for many years to come,” Miller concludes in a press release. “Our focus now is to safely accelerate the pace of retrievals and ultimately eliminate the risk these historic buildings pose.”
Engineering Nuclear Cleanup Nuclear Safety Nuclear Waste Radioactive Sellafield Ltd Storage Vacuum Cleaner Vault Waste
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