Radioactive wastes. The groundwork of current solutions

Today the groundwork laid down by research has made processes available for the durable treatment and conditioning of all types of radioactive waste. This document illustrates the today situations in five presentations. Now standing as a national reference, the french inventory of radioactive waste, drawn up by ANDRA, has not only expanded to cover recoverable material but also features predictions of waste arisings for 2010 and 2020, including waste from the decommissioning of current installations. The current process used for spent fuel reprocessing allows extraction for recycling purpose, of uranium and plutonium, with very high recovery and purification rates. Advances in characterization and decontamination allow improvements in sorting and retrieval and conditioning to be considered for older wastes. The french National radioactive waste management agency (ANDRA) is already providing optimum industrial solutions for all short-lived, low and very low level waste on its Soulaines and Morvillers sites. For several decades, Areva has been reprocessing spent fuel and conditioning ultimate waste in its La Hague plants. (A.L.B.)