The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge are upgrading the Transuranic Waste Processing Center to handle large waste boxes from deactivation and demolition at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex. The remodeled cask processing enclosure allows the center to process those boxes, the Office of Environmental Management said November 3, 2026.

Crews began removing outdated equipment and electrical controls from the enclosure earlier this year. They modified the ventilation system and installed cameras, monitoring software and a drum crusher.

The center is one of only two facilities in the Department of Energy complex capable of processing legacy transuranic waste. Workers had been cutting drums with a reciprocating saw before the crusher was added.