The conditioned reprocessing waste returns. An overview of the question

Although the spent nuclear fuel reprocessing is at present under careful reconsideration and analysis in several countries, the economics, the environmental and health protection aspects being taken into consideration by many experts, it is nevertheless currently carried out in Great Britain and in France as a commercial service offered to the domestic utilities an to foreign customers, according to the contracts and the agreements signed in the past. Such contracts have been signed with COGEMA and/or BNFL by seven countries: Germany, Sweden, Japan, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Holland. As a consequence of this, a big number of high level radioactive glass containers and of cemented and bituminized waste will be returned in order to be stored and disposed off in these European countries and in Japan. The disposal of the conditioned wastes will only be possible if their characteristics comply with the acceptance criteria established or to be established in each customer country. A brief review of the situation will be presented in this paper, particular attention being given to the problems possibly arising from the acceptance point of view of the different reprocessing waste categories