Both nuclear fuel reprocessing plants at Sellafield in Cumbria, UK were shut down on 21 September due to high level nuclear waste reaching unacceptable levels. The UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII), a government regulator, has been critical of British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) for failure to deal with heat producing waste, the most dangerous material stored at the plant. Despite attempts to reduce the amount of liquid waste, the plant has broken down repeatedly and been out of operation for most of this year. 

The plant is meant to turn waste into more manageable gas blocks. The amount of waste at the plant is rising instead of falling. The reprocessing plant deals with spent fuel from nuclear reactors in the UK as well as from customers in Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and Italy. The NII warned BNFL in August that unless it reduced the amount of waste in holding tanks at Sellafield--currently more than 1,550 cubic meters--by 35 cubic meters each year for the next 14 years, the plant would be shut down. This year, the amount of waste at the plant has increased by more than 100 cubic meters.

The plant has only achieved 34 percent of its potential production in a decade, leading to the build up of high level radioactive wastes. The Irish government has protested to the British government the threat posed by the waste to its citizens. (source: Guardian Unlimited; 22 September 2001)