Pierre and Marie Curie received 10 tons of radioactive waste from plechbenda, a uranium ore. It consisted of bags of brown powder mixed with pine needles, a waste already more radioactive than the base ore. It was processed 20 kg at a time in a large hangar that eventually filled with cauldrons of boiling radioactive liquid at various stages of preparation. In 1902, they finally found radium, in addition to barium, beryllium, and polonium.
