The U.S. Department of Energy announced today that the federal workers have begun to bind up Hanford tank waste in glass for the first time at the long-awaited vitrification plant.
Workers made the first radioactive glass at the site, despite a federal government shutdown.
Now, the Low-Activity Waste Facility, a key part of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, will work 24/7 to complete the job of glassifying all of the low-activity waste, according to Bechtel, the federal contractor in charge of the plant. Cleaning up all of the waste sites at Hanford could take more than 60 years, DOE estimates.
The plant’s startup met the Oct. 15, 2025, deadline for a consent decree legal commitment with the state of Washington.
“I appreciate the hard work and determination of the entire Hanford team to deliver on this legal commitment,” said DOE Hanford Site Manager Ray Geimer. “This achievement enables us to shift focus to safely operating the plant and to progressing solutions for the Hanford tank waste mission in its entirety.”
There are 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste — in liquid, sludge and saltcake forms — stored at Hanford.
“This is really a historic breakthrough,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “After decades of effort, we are officially turning nuclear waste into glass at Hanford. This is a monumental achievement that belongs to quite literally generations of Hanford workers … This is just the start and we’ve still got a ways to go before we’re anywhere near done, but today’s success is worth celebrating — let’s make glass!”
The new plant’s job is important: The radioactive waste stews away in leaking underground tanks made of steel and concrete, not far from the Columbia River.
The waste is the byproduct of the government’s plutonium production process for bombs during World War II and the Cold War.
