Once produced and before final disposal, certain radioactive waste undergoes treatments to reduce its volume or harmfulness and, whenever possibly, to recover exploitable materials. These treatments can produce secondary waste. After processing, the waste is packaged and then, depending on its nature, placed in an interim storage facility or sent to a waste repository.

The following paragraphs present the situation in basic nuclear installations.

The CEA operates treatment, packaging and interim storage facilities for the main types of waste it produces through its research and dismantling activities as well as through its industrial activities (manufacture of sources). In general, each CEA site has treatment and packaging installations for the waste and radioactive effluent it produces (see chapter 13). The solid wastes for which there are operational channels (reprocessing, elimination by incineration or melting, disposal in approved surface repositories) are removed accordingly (installations of the CEA, Centraco, repository, etc.). Long-lived intermediate and high level waste is generally stored by the CEA in installations with a lifespan limited to a few decades, pending creation of a disposal channel. Very low level waste, a significant volume of which is generated, particularly owing to dismantling of CEA former installations, are stored on site and then taken away to the VLL waste repository. Liquid waste is treated, solidified and packaged in drums. Depending on their activity, the resulting packages are either disposed of in the ANDRA's Aube waste repository (CS-FMA), or stored by the CEA, pending availability of a final disposal channel.

The CEA also possesses solid and liquid legacy waste for which there could be treatment problems (technical difficulties due to problems with bulk collection of effluents from their storage tanks and lack of constituent chemical product characterisation or for which there is no operational disposal channel. The ASN ensures that treatment of this waste is one of CEA's priorities within its waste management policy and that adequate surveillance is maintained on the storage facilities pending treatment.

Nuclear fuel without further use from the civil sectors of the CEA is placed in interim storage, either dry (in a decay pit) or in a pool, pending definition of a disposal channel (reprocessing or storage).

One of the challenges for the CEA in radioactive waste management will be to commission new treatment installations within a time-frame compatible with its commitments to shutting down the older installations, which no longer meet modern safety standards.

The CEA strategy was seriously compromised by the decisions taken in 2003 to abandon the new installation projects such as ECUME for interim storage of spent fuel and irradiating solid waste, and ATENA for treatment of contaminated sodium waste.

In 2005, the CEA also announced a modification of the AGATE project on the Cadarache site, entailing treatment of the concentrates produced in AGATE by the Marcoule effluent treatment station. The ASN will be particularly vigilant concerning shared effluent management by the Marcoule and Cadarache centres, as proposed by the CEA. The ASN contemplates having the CEA's waste and spent fuel management strategy reviewed again by the members of the Advisory Committee for waste.

Aware of the fact that the CEA's decisions to abandon these installation projects were made in a context of budget restrictions, the ASN nonetheless considers that efforts must continue to maintain the aim of removal of waste from interim storage and cessation of treatment activities in the older installations.

The COGEMA spent fuel reprocessing plant at La Hague produces most of this company's radioactive waste. The waste produced at La Hague comprises on the one hand the waste resulting from reprocessing of spent fuel and on the other, the waste linked to operation of the installations.

The waste generated by the spent fuels includes:

– Fission products and minor actinides (high level):

After a decay period in stainless steel tanks, the fission product and minor actinide solutions resulting from spent fuel reprocessing are calcined then vitrified. The resulting molten glass, which contains the fission products and minor actinides, is poured into stainless steel containers. After the glass solidifies, the containers are transferred to an interim storage facility pending disposal or until they are sent to the customer.

This waste contains most of the radioactivity in the waste produced in France.

The annual volume of vitrified waste packages corresponding to reprocessing of EDF fuels, amounts to about 100 m3.

- Long-lived intermediate level structural waste

This chiefly consists of fuel metal cladding (called "hulls") and metal structures such as fuel assembly end-pieces. The packaging process consists in compacting the waste and placing it in a standard container. The final CSD-C package can also contain metal technological waste.

The authorisation for precommissioning of the hull compacting facility (ACC) and the unit for interim storage of CSD-C containers in E EV south-east was the subject of a ministerial authorisation in 2002.

2004 production on behalf of all COGEMA customers, amounted to 1050 CSD-Cs (or about 180 m3), comprising both line production and recovery of legacy waste stored under water. This waste recovery process should continue in the coming years.