News story

Shipment of high level waste from the UK to Germany - October 2020

An update on a shipment of waste from Sellafield to Germany.

An areial view of the Pacific Grebe, a large blue ship, at sea.

皇冠体育app Pacific Grebe

As previously announced, the UK will be returning high level waste in the form of vitrified residues to Germany.

皇冠体育app waste results from the reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fuel at the Sellafield site in West Cumbria, which had previously been used to produce electricity by utilities in Germany.

皇冠体育app first of the three planned shipments is now safely under way. Six flasks, each containing 28 canisters of high level waste, were first transported from Sellafield to the nearby port of Barrow-in-Furness by rail. 皇冠体育app flasks were then loaded on to the specialist nuclear transport vessel Pacific Grebe, operated by International Nuclear Services (INS).

皇冠体育app vessel sailed from Barrow at approximately 11pm on 27 October and is now en-route to a German port, where the flasks will be offloaded for their onward journey by rail to a Federal interim storage facility at Biblis.

INS, a subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, draws on more than 40 years鈥� experience of transporting nuclear materials safely and securely around the world.

INS has contracted with Daher Nuclear Technologies GmbH to safely manage the overland transport in Germany.

皇冠体育app Vitrified Residue Returns programme is a key component of the UK鈥檚 strategy to repatriate high level waste from the UK, fulfil overseas contracts and deliver Government policy.

Sellafield Ltd will provide further information on the shipment in due course.

Updates to this page

Published 28 October 2020