Work is due to begin next month to construct a £100million store for low-level radioactive waste from a former nuclear power station.
Up to six shallow vaults will be built on land next to Dounreay in Caithness, with the first expected to be ready in 2014.
They will be used to hold items like paper, rags, tools, glass, concrete and clothing which contain small amounts of mostly short-lived radioactivity.
The cost of the project is being met by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority which is investing £100million for the safe disposal of low-level radioactive waste from the decommissioning of the site.
Cleaning out and dismantling Dounreay is expected to produce up to 240,000 tonnes of low-level waste.
A Dounreay spokesman said: “The construction of the vaults is a real milestone for the closure of the site because the facility will allow us to clear the low-level waste from the site.”
The contaminated material will be placed in 500-litre steel drums, which will be squashed, put in shipping containers filled with cement, moved to the vaults and covered in more concrete. Subject to regulatory consent from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the first batch of waste is expected to go into the vault in 2014.
Up to six will be built depending on how much waste there is.
Phillip Colville, finance director with site closure contractor Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, said: “It’s good news for the environment and the economy.
“The disposal site provides a safe long-term home for the legacy of low-active waste at Dounreay and provides the community with a cash flow that can help to sustain it beyond the closure of the site.”
Dounreay’s nuclear reactor was shut down in 1994 and work to decommission the site has been under way since then as part of a £2.6billion project. It was the only plant in Britain to use liquid metal instead of gas or water in the cooling circuits.