Well, there are some alternatives to rewinding the materials back to their original state (which was also radioactive).
- Grind it all to dust, bin sort each atom (like they do to get U235) to get materials of interest.
- Toss it all into a pocket-sized black hole, which will let it all evaporate out as something more mundane (while likely spraying the area with hard radiation at infall).
- Bombard it with thermal neutrons until it gets really hot (make it into something with a shorter half-life).
- Grind it and bake it into big ceramic cakes, insert thermopiles, and generate electricity
- Let it sit and hope our children are smarter than we have been in the last 50 or so years.
- More?
David A. Smith