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Packaging is proud to announce the addition of Rigid Drum Liners to our
product line. Rigid Drum Liners are used to line the drums that contain
transuranic waste.
Transuranic
waste is material that is contaminated with U-233 (and its daughter
products), certain isotopes of plutonium, and nuclides with atomic numbers
greater than 92 (uranium). It is produced during the reprocessing of spent
fuel to separate plutonium for use in fabrication of nuclear weapons. Their
radioactivity levels are generally low, but since they contain several
long-lived isotopes, they must managed separately. This classification is
composed of isotopes with half-lives greater than 20 years and giving a
total activity of greater than 100 nanocuries per gram of waste. Isotopes
include plutonium-239, half-life 2.4 E4 yr.; americium-241, 433 yr.;
americium-243, 7380 yr.; curium-244, 18 yr.; and curium-245, 8500 yr. A very
long-lived half-lived isotope is also present, neptunium-237, 2.1 million
yr.
Transuranic
wastes give off very little heat, and most of them can be handled by
ordinary methods not requiring remote control. For many years they were
buried in shallow trenches, but since 1970 they have been placed in
retrievable storage in large storage pools usually at the plant.
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