Yes, and for many types of waste this is the process. However, it is an expensive and slow-going process, which means that even once started it takes quite a wh

Yes, and for many types of waste this is the process. However, it is an expensive and slow-going process, which means that even once started it takes quite a while to complete. For medium-grade radioactive waste landfills typical at research sites (landfills that contain things like transuranic/TRU contaminated materials, things like gloves/aprons/tools/containers used with uranium), the process is generally to excavate the landfill using equipment with air filtration (and using chemical binders and site containment to prevent radioactive fugitive dust), then loading the material into large gloveboxes where workers sort through it by hand to classify based on type of material and radioactivity levels to ensure that it is all safe for the intended storage strategy. It is then usually mixed with something to provide shock protection, binding, and contain any liquid seepage (famously often cat litter). The big problem is that acquiring equipment with operator protection for this kind of work, and building out a processing facility with gloveboxes, air filtration, and monitoring/sampling (which needs to be onsite since, prior to processing, none of the waste is considered safe for transport) is expensive and takes quite some time. Even then, since there is usually no perceived urgency, a relatively small facility will be built that will take many years to complete the job. The waste, once packaged, may be stored on-site or transferred to a short-term repository (often just a well-built warehouse where certified staff monitor for any trouble). Ultimately it should be transferred to a long-term repository where it should be safe for the indefinite future without expensive continuous monitoring, but for a variety of reasons, both technical and political, this doesn't yet happen on a large scale. This is, though, what is happening in New Mexico right now - various sites, but most notably Los Alamos National Laboratories, are excavating and processing their waste landfills, packaging the material, storing it temporarily on site in purpose-build facilities or transporting it to an off-site certified storage facilities (e.g. commercial operations near the New Mexico-Texas border), and ultimately transferring it to the WIPP geological repository. If you know anything about WIPP's rather rocky recent past, you will know that this process is still fraught with occasional problems and the industry has plenty more to learn about how to do it safely and efficiently.