The experience of the French industry on the shallow ground storage of radioactive waste

The volume of low- and intermediate-level beta- and gamma-bearing waste in France currently amounts to 20,000 m3/a. This figure will rise to about 50,000 m3/a in 1990 and to 100,000 m3/a in the year 2000. While in 1981 only 30% of this waste will come from nuclear power stations, the proportion will continue to increase and will reach about 75% by 1990. After the waste has been treated in accordance with the specifications laid down by ANDRA (French National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management), it is stored in a shallow-ground burial centre which has been operating for more than 11 years. The principle behind the present scheme is to isolate the waste from the environment for a time which is sufficiently long to allow the radioactivity to decrease to a level where the residual risk is negligible. According to the level of activity which they contain, the various standardized packages are placed in concrete trenches, some of which are specially designed to take hot packages, or buried in mounds covered by a radiation-proof layer composed mainly of clay. The centre includes a temporary storage facility for waste which is unsuitable for final shallow-ground disposal, usually because its alpha-emitter content is above the level allowed by the safety authorities. This waste will eventually be taken to a special storage centre for alpha-bearing waste. The experience so far acquired confirms that short-term shallow-ground storage of waste represents a safe and economically acceptable solution. For this reason, ANDRA has started a project for building a second storage centre of the same type to increase the overall capacity for this kind of waste. (author)