During its operations, the Sillamäe plant dumped the processing wastes into a tailing pond at the north-western part of Sillamäe near the Baltic Sea shoreline. By the 1990s, the pond presented a serious ecological hazard due to leaching of radioactive and other harmful particulates and dissolved materials into Baltic Sea. In the 2000s, measures were undertaken to secure the containment of the wastes at Sillamäe.[12]