ANDRA a major player in radioactive waste management

This article presents ANDRA (French national agency for the management of radioactive wastes). The 1991 decree defined a 3-axis mission for ANDRA: i) an industrial mission that means collecting, processing, storing and monitoring radioactive wastes issuing from nuclear power plants, hospitals, factories and laboratories; ii) a research mission in order to bring scientific information to the parliament debate when it will be time to discuss solutions to the management of long-life or high activities wastes; iii) an information mission to report the advancement of the project and to record the whole production of radioactive wastes in order to keep track of them. In 1969 the disposal of wastes into deep seas was outlawed, the same year the first storage facility (La-Manche plant) opened. This facility stopped receiving waste packages in 1994, a new facility (Aube plant) which took over in 1992, is now at 10% of its load capacity. The decree concerning the construction of an underground laboratory at the border between La-Meuse and Haute-Marne departments was signed in august 1999. This first laboratory is dedicated to study the ability of clay layers to host long-life or high activity wastes. (A.C.)