Question: Where do you do put the nuclear waste?

Alexander Cunningham answered on 14 Mar 2022:

Good question – it depends on how radioactive the nuclear waste actually is! The more radioactive the waste, the more radiation it emits (radiation is tiny particles/rays which can be dangerous if lots of them hit people). So, we have to be more careful with the more radioactive stuff!

Less radioactive waste (called Low Level Waste) is much easier to deal with. We put some of it in big shipping containers filled with cement and dispose of these at a big site in Cumbria called the Low Level Waste Repository. Some of the Low Level Waste can even be burned.

The more radioactive waste (e.g. stuff that comes out of a nuclear reactor) is more difficult to deal with. The plan is to put the waste inside containers then bury these for millions of years in tunnels deep underground (at a place called a Geological Disposal Facility), but we’re still waiting for one of these places to be built in the UK. So for now the waste is put inside big steel or concrete containers (which block most of the radiation emitted by the waste to make it safer for humans) then stored in big sealed warehouses (again, mostly in Cumbria).