Information report issued by application of the article 145 of the Regulation by the mission of information on the management of radioactive materials and wastes on the behalf of the Commission on sustainable development and land planning - Nr 1218

This report first proposes a review of the issue of radioactive wastes in France: classification criteria, relationship between dangerousness and activity level, annual stock of radioactive wastes and materials in France, perspectives on a medium term in relationship with the evolution of the energy mix structure, a complex institutional system with different actors (Parliament, radioactive waste producers, the national agency for radioactive waste management - ANDRA, bodies and institutions in charge of regulation and control such as the ASN and the IRSN, but also NGOs and local information commissions). The next part addresses the issue of deep geological disposal of medium-activity long-life and high-activity wastes: international recommendations and solutions, other storage options (in sea or in space, sub-surface warehousing, and research on separation-transmutation), the choice made in time by France from the law of 1991 to the debate on the construction of Cigeo (the industrial centre for geological disposal). The last part addresses some questions which are still to be answered. They concern the Cigeo project (its costs, its reversibility, its integration within a land planning project), the governance and missions of the ANDRA, a better taking into account of all kinds of radioactive wastes (notably the mining wastes) and the idea of the introduction of a dangerousness threshold