Optimising radioactive waste management channels: a key challenge for the future

The objective set out in the 2010-2012 National Radioactive Materials and Waste Management Plan is to optimize the way in which waste is distributed across the different management channels. The aim of implementing such optimisation is intended to improve the technical and economic conditions under which waste is managed, at an equivalent level of safety, and even to improve safety performance. To achieve this, it is essential to take every stage in waste management into consideration: production, sorting, processing, packaging, storage and disposal. For each type of waste identified as a potential subject of optimised management, the possible alternatives at each stage are assessed. Next, by integrating the alternatives considered within an overall framework of radioactive waste management, it is possible to construct management scenarios that can be assessed in terms of safety, technical and economic performance, and social acceptability. This will then make it possible to decide, on a repeatable basis, on a waste management scenario considered to be optimised. ANDRA (French national agency for the management of radioactive waste) plans to deploy this approach mainly within the framework of the discussions it has been tasked with leading on industrial management scenarios for low-level, long-lived radioactive waste. (author)