CILLIT BANG: SHIFTS ALL STUBBORN NUKE STAINS; Cleaner used at power plant.

Byline: STEPHEN WHITE

SPECIALIST teams shutting down a nuclear power plant are cleaning it up with Cillit Bang.

Decontamination experts at the Dounreay site are using the pounds 1.99 cleaner to remove radioactive plutonium stains.

The huge site on the coast of Caithness in north-east Scotland is in the process of being decommissioned.

But workers found their normal cleaning fluid was slowing down the job of dismantling a chemical plant used in the 1980s to recycle plutonium liquor.

One of the team suggested trying the household cleaner made famous by an iconic TV ad where fictional salesman Barry Scott suggests the trigger cleaner can strip grime instantly from a 1p coin.

The four-storey chemical plant consists of a series of pipes and boxes made from steel and toughened glass.

And the solutions which ran through it left it stained with plutonium.

David Manson, project manager with Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, said Cillit Bang was helping drive down the pounds 2.6billion cost of demolishing the site. He said: "We need to decontaminate as much of the surfaces as possible before we can cut them up.

"The normal agents we'd use on steel and glass need time to dry and this slowed us down.

"One of the team remembered seeing Cillit Bang dissolve the grime on a coin in a TV ad and thought it was worth looking at. I'm very glad we did. We tested it and found it very effective."

The 15-strong clean-up team wears whole-body plastic suits with their own oxygen supply and often need four or even five layers of gloves to protect them from radiation.

Bosses at Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria, which is also being decommissioned, are among those who have been in touch to learn more about using Cillit Bang.

CAPTION(S):

CLOSURE Dounreay site ICONIC The TV advert for the cleaning product