Waste management issues at national level

With regard to the other categories of radioactive waste without current industrial solutions, the strategy is defined in the 2006 Planning Act on the sustainable management of radioactive materials and waste (Act 2006-739 of 28 June 2006).

The 2006 Planning Act stipulates that for high-level waste and long-lived intermediate-level waste the research and studies have to be pursued according to three complementary venues, which were already mentioned as R&D venues in the December 1991 Waste Act:

• partitioning and transmutation of long-lived elements, so that an assessment can be made in 2012 of the industrial prospects of reactors allowing transmutation and a prototype installation set in operation before 31 December 2020;
• reversible disposal in deep geological formations, in order that a license application can be filed in 2015, and, subject to such an authorization, the repository can be commissioned in 2025;
• storage, in order, at least in 2015, to create new storage installations or modify existing ones to meet the needs.

The 2006 Planning Act defines as well, with some milestones, the programme for the other types of radioactive waste which do not have yet a final solution (radium-bearing and graphite waste, tritium-containing waste, sealed sources) and for the long-term impact of the disposal sites of uranium mining waste and implementation of a strengthened radiological surveillance plan at these sites.

It stipulates that a National Plan for the management of radioactive materials and waste shall be drawn up before 31 December 2006 and, afterwards, shall be updated every three years.

There are also articles concerning various topics (no disposal in France of foreign radioactive waste, rules concerning the introduction in France of spent fuel and its reprocessing, a National Review Board in charge with evaluating, annually, the progress of research and studies with reference to the above-mentioned National Plan).