The West Valley vitrification plant in New York state has been closed. The plant was commissioned to vitrify 2.27 million litres of high-level liquid waste resulting from the country’s only commercial reprocessing plant, which closed in 1976. Between 1996-2002, the West Valley plant treated 890,000TBq of liquid waste. Most of the waste was incorporated into borosilicate glass and then placed into 275 steel canisters of 3m height and 0.6m diameter.
