OREANDA-NEWS. On December 21, 2007 german NUKEM has become the first company to have completed construction of a nuclear waste utilization facility at Chornobyl, reported the Official website www.kmu.gov.ua.

The waste holder was built under the TACIS program 17 km away from the nuclear power plant. It is analogous to that constructed by NUKEM in Spain.

According to Director of the Chornobyl NPP projects Mykhailo Zolotukhin, the new facility is almost ready to be inspected by a state commission. "The equipment installed by NUKEM is functional, which was proved by testing without the use of nuclear waste," he said.

The facility is expected to be filled up within the next 10 years, following which it will remain under ecological and radiation control for the next 300 years.

According to NUKEM Director General Ulf Kutscher, his company will put in two more facilities at Chornobyl next year.