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The regulations also require licensees to conduct waste
studies, indicating the targets with regard to prevention,
reduction at source, harmfulness of the waste and the
means implemented to reduce waste volumes and
harmfulness through sorting and appropriate treatment
and packaging.
ASN resolution 2015-DC-0508 of 21st April 2015 relative
to the wastemanagement study and the assessment of the
waste produced in the BNIs details the provisions of the
Order of 7th February 2012, particularly concerning :
•
the content of the waste management study, which
must be submitted when a BNI is commissioned and
kept up to date throughout its operation;
•
the procedures for drawing up andmanaging the waste
zoning plan;
•
the content of the annual wastemanagement assessment
which each installation must transmit to ASN.
A guide to the application of this resolution (GuideNo. 23)
will be published by ASN in 2016.
Production of radioactive waste by a nuclear
activity authorised under the Public Health Code
Article R. 1333-12 of Public Health Code states that the
management of effluents and waste contaminated by
radioactive substances originating fromall nuclear activities
related tomedicine, humanbiology, or biomedical research
that involve a risk of exposure to ionising radiationmust
be examined and approved by the public authorities.
ASN resolution 2008-DC-0095 of 29th January 2008
lays out the technical rules that the disposal of effluents
andwaste contaminated or potentially contaminated by
radionuclides owing to a nuclear activity must satisfy.
ASNpublished a guide (Guide No. 18) to the application
of this resolution in January 2012.
1.1.2 The national inventory of radioactive
materials and waste
Article L. 542-12 of the Environment Code assigns Andra
the duty of
“establishing, updating every three years and
publishing the inventory of radioactive materials and waste
present France, along with their location on the national
territory”.
The last issue of the national inventory of radioactive
materials andwastewas published in June 2015. It presents
in particular information relative to the quantities, the
nature and the location of the radioactive materials and
waste at the end of 2013 and projections for the end of
2020 and the end of 2030. A prospective exercise was
also conducted considering two contrasting scenarios
for France’s long-term energy policy. This inventory is a
source of information for the PNGMDR.
ASNwas on the steering committee that supervised the
exercise.
1.1.3 The French National Plan for the Management
of Radioactive Materials and Waste
Article L.542-1-2 of the Environment Code requires
the production of the French National Plan for the
Management of Radioactive Materials and Waste
(PNGMDR), which is revised every three years and
serves to
“review the existing management procedures for
radioactive materials and waste, to identify the foreseeable
needs for storage and disposal facilities, specify the necessary
capacity of these facilities and the storage durations and, for
radioactive waste for which there is as yet no final management
solution, to determine the objectives to be met”.
The main
provisions of the plan are then set by Decree.
ASN’s opinion on the reusability of radioactive
materials
As part of the PNGMDR, at the end of 2014 the owners
of radioactive materials submitted a report presenting their
update of the envisaged reuse processes, with their analysis
of the match between the prospects for reuse and the
quantities held or to be held. ASN issued an opinion on the
reusability of radioactive materials on 9th February 2016,
in line with its opinion of 6th February 2014.
ASN considers that the recyclable nature of a radioactive
material depends on the control of the reuse process, the
industrial strategies of the owners, the foreseeable technical-
economic and socio-political conditions, the balance between
the quantities held, their production flow and the projected
consumption flows. ASN also considers that the conditions
for reusing a substance cannot always be identical, and will
depend on its content, speciation, isotopy or association
with other substances, and that the assessment of reuse
possibilities must take into account interdependencies with
other radioactive substances. To assess this last criterion,
ASN considers it necessary that the prospective scenarios for
future issues of the national inventory of radioactive materials
and waste be further developed to take into account the
objectives of the Energy Transition for Green Growth Act.
On the basis of the abovementioned criteria, ASN asks that
additional justifications be provided for certain substances,
including depleted uranium, recycled uranium from spent fuel
reprocessing, plutonium, spent fuels from research reactors
and thorium. ASN also considers that the quantities of
depleted uranium held or resulting from the held stock which
cannot be used in the current fleet of thermal-neutron reactors
should be re-qualified as radioactive waste as a protective
measure in order to ring-fence the financing of their long-term
management.
TO BE NOTED
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CHAPTER 16:
RADIOACTIVE WASTE AND CONTAMINATED SITES AND SOILS
ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2015