SPECIAL REPORT | RECYCLING MATERIALS
What goes around comes around
As the nuclear and decommissioning industries grow, the importance of being seen to take a ‘circular economy’ approach grows with them. Meanwhile the economic case increasingly favours reuse and recycling.
IN NOVEMBER 2025, THE UK highlighted a ‘circular economy’ (CE) deal between Sizewell C, now under construction, and Nuclear Restoration Services (NRS), the company taking on decommissioning at closed sites. After NRS demolished the turbine hall at the neighbouring Sizewell A site, more than 15,000t of crushed concrete from the turbine alternator plinths were sent to be reused at Sizewell C, just a few hundred metres up the coast. Sizewell A carried out crushing, testing and certification
of the concrete to ensure it met the UK’s WRAP [Waste and Resources Action Programme] Quality Protocol. The deal reduced procurement costs, avoided the need to extract new primary aggregates and transport them from other parts of the country, and minimised the impact on roads of the almost 800 vehicle movements required. The companies involved highlighted the efficient resource use in a press release. But reuse and recycling have become an important part of the nuclear industry’s ‘back end’, just as it has for other industries. Whether the nuclear industry can be a part of the
After NRS demolished the turbine hall at Sizewell A, crushed concrete from the site was sent to be reused. Source: Site Stakeholder Group.
so-called CE was the subject of a paper published in September 2025, titled ‘When waste becomes a resource: Applying a circular economy framework to nuclear power decommissioning’. The authors (T Perko, R Geysmans, C Turcanu, Gabriela Roman-Ross and Maia Vercelli) say the question is particularly important “as, in the last decade, approximately 200 commercial, experimental, or prototype
nuclear reactors, over 500 nuclear research reactors, and several fuel cycle facilities such as uranium enrichment plants or reprocessing facilities, have already been retired from operation worldwide”. In addition, many nuclear reactors built in the 1970s and 1980s will soon reach the end of their operational life and will require decommissioning. But of the 213 permanently shut down nuclear power reactors worldwide, they say only 23 have undergone full decommissioning, with just nine sites released from regulatory control and restored to greenfield status. They characterise decommissioning as being “a process
traditionally associated with the linear economy model… generating large inventories of waste – both radioactive and non-radioactive”. But they note that typically less than 5% of the material generated in the decommissioning process is radioactively contaminated, and most of the contaminated material contains very low levels of radioactivity. The authors say that “while the circular economy
approach in nuclear decommissioning in generally supports sustainability, it can also pose challenges such as radiological safety risks, high verification costs, regulatory hurdles, and public resistance to material reuse. These factors may limit the feasibility and acceptance of circular approaches in practice”. They say that “it is crucial to establish a clear framework
for applying CE principles in this context. The absence of a unified and agreed definition and set of criteria and indicators for CE in nuclear decommissioning processes not only creates confusion but also hinders the potential for optimising material reuse, reducing waste, and improving sustainability”. The authors found that applying CE practices in the nuclear
sector has some support from the general public, citing, for example, a public opinion study conducted in Belgium in 2024 showing that 11.8% of citizens support reuse for industrial, non-nuclear purposes citizens and 27.7% support it for activities involving radioactive materials. The authors argue that a consolidated and agreed-upon definition of CE in nuclear decommissioning should be actively adopted by authorities, experts and stakeholders to foster alignment and improve coordination across all involved parties and to enable harmonisation and collaboration across national borders. Policymakers and authorities in the nuclear decommissioning sector are encouraged to integrate this definition into regulatory frameworks, ensuring consistency in requirements and facilitating the evaluation of circularity within the broader sustainability context.
Experience in reuse and recycling The phrase ‘circular economy’ is relatively new, but recycling and reuse are longstanding aims of the nuclear industry. By 1996, nuclear decommissioning had already generated 30 million tonnes of scrap metals and it was already clear
34 | October 2026 |
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