UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 9, 2016. Russia’s first final repository for short-lived radioactive waste was recently launched in Novouralsk, NO RAO’s press service reports.

The first batch of radioactive waste materials (47m3 in thirteen packs) got disposed of between November 28 and December 2. The event was attended by members of Novouralsk NGOs, the local nuclear facility representatives, and reporters, who could all watch the containers placed under the ground.

The repository is an underground facility that meets all the new legislative standards and the IAEA requirements and is meant for final disposal of solid radioactive waste for up to three hundred years. This is an iron-concrete structure that is 140m long, 24m wide, and 7m deep and is cushioned with a number of both natural and constructed barriers.