[en] Decommissioning means actions taken at the end of the useful life of a facility in retiring it from service with adequate regard for the health and safety of workers and members of the public. In the present work, we introduce a radiation protection approach for the removal of radioactive material to the extent that the facility or site becomes available for use without restriction. The facility to be decommissioned is a fuel cycle pilot plant that operated with natural uranium and thorium for almost two decades and then, kept inactive for about 10 years at the Nuclear and Energy Research Institute - IPEN. Even after this long period of inactivity, it has presented significant levels of radiation and contamination spread over the floor, walls, windows, doors and ceiling. The fuel cycle pilot plant was completely dismantled, remaining only the walls and the concrete structures. In this work we present the job done to restore the area. According to each step of dismantling a continuous monitoring of the contaminated surfaces was carried out including the survey of the deep material from the floor and walls. The material identified as radioactive waste was stored into appropriated metal drums. A radiation protection team guided this stage of the work, prescribing the tasks, and the amount of material that should be removed from floors, windows and ceiling. For this, repetitive surveys had to be done. The results of monitoring and contamination levels were analysed, thus guiding the next steps of the job. In this way radiation protection team took over the tasks, running the work with the purpose of achieving acceptable levels of radiation, restoring the area for unrestricted use. (author)