Sunrise over Sellafield.

Decaying, great, grey husks of concrete loom over faceless, corrugated metal boxes and prefabricated cabins, with smokeless chimneys towering over all. Imposing chainlink fences topped with razor wire separate the outside world from this metropolis, only accessible through fierce steel turnstiles and layers of security. It is truly the city that never sleeps: after all, the flow of nuclear waste never stops.

Night-shift workers in high-vis emerge from windowless rooms into the early morning air and file out through the barriers, another set arriving to take their place. It’s remarkably quiet. There are no bustling cafés on site to grab coffee and stop for a chat. No parks to gather and spread a picnic blanket. Only rugged hills and wide, open, blue sky to greet you, and a long trek home.

Here, at the end of the world, one of the most hazardous places on earth is surprisingly calm. Perched as it is at the edge of a vast expanse of sea and sand and sky, wildlife can thrive here undisturbed. Sunshine yellow gorse grows abundantly. Swallows swoop and gulls soar over the dunes by the tiny railway station, whose trains take you on a meandering route along the coast, past tiny villages and endless beaches.

To a visitor, getting anywhere feels like an age. ID must be verified, documents checked and photographs taken, then passes must be issued — your ticket through the turnstiles, as long as you’re escorted at all times. After a bus ride, it’s a mile-long walk past nameless rectangular buildings with designations like ‘B7125’ and ‘D4711’. Pipes high above channel liquid waste, encase in several feet of concrete. Steam hisses from vents in pipes below ground level. Tall cranes begin the slow process of carefully dismantling crumbing structures. The ancient dome of the old reactor sits silent, a reminder of the site’s past. An illuminated sign declares the last environmental incident occurred 347 days ago. I don’t know whether that’s reassuring or not.

Access to the High Level Waste Plant, the most secure area of the site, requires yet more security procedures. Personnel in this area require dosemeters to monitor exposure to radiation. Still further in, shoes and socks must be exchanged for the ones issued by plant workers, belongings must be left behind in a locker and protective gear donned. Inside, glass panels six feet thick offer a glimpse of the vitrification process. It’s sobering knowing a human on the other side of that glass would be dead within seconds. Only robots can work here, behind the glass. Robotic arms must repair other robots, their discarded parts left piled up at one end of the room. Nothing is ever getting out of here. What will become of this room when it finally reaches the end of its useful life, many, many years into the future? Someone, somewhere will be responsible for ensuring no one can ever set foot here.

The control room is the beating heart, where technology of a past age must deal with the challenges of today. Where humans navigate the tension between the monotony of the everyday and the possibility of catastrophe. Where the consequences of a procedure incorrectly followed may be disastrous, but there is also camaraderie. These workers won’t see the sun for another twelve hours.

In the vitrification plant, highly active liquor is processed into stable glass, which is buried deep and plugged with 20 feet of concrete to be cooled and stored. The smooth concrete floor is warm to the touch. Far into the future, long after we’re gone, people will still need to manage this waste, to make it safe. How many generations of grandchildren will watch over this facility? Maybe one day all this work will be done by robots, only a skeleton crew of humans remaining to monitor them. And then one day far into the future, maybe in a few hundred years, maybe more, there will be nothing left for humans here. Communities will disappear as their livelihoods vanish. And perhaps in a few thousand years from now, a mere blink of an eye on the cosmic scale, this land will finally be reclaimed by plants and animals, and a unique ecosystem will thrive. Nature will heal over this scar.