ASN Report 2017

459 ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2017 Chapter 16  - Radioactive waste and contaminated sites and soils a decommissioning file in 2025 with a view to starting the emptying of the silos in 2029. EDF will present the progress of the removal-from-silo and storage studies to ASN in 2018. ASN will examine these studies along with the periodic safety review of the silos in 2019. 1.4.4 Socodei melting/incineration facility The Centraco low-level waste processing facility (BNI 160), located in Codolet near the Marcoule site (Gard département ), is operated by Socodei, a subsidiary of EDF. The purpose of the Centraco plant is to sort, decontaminate, reuse, treat and package – particularly by reducing their volume – waste and effluents with low levels of radioactivity. The waste is then routed to the Andra CSA repository. The facility comprises: ཛྷ ཛྷ a melting unit melting a maximum of 3,500 tonnes of metallic waste per year; ཛྷ ཛྷ an incineration unit incinerating a maximum of 3,000 tonnes of solid waste and 2,000 tonnes of liquid waste per year; ཛྷ ཛྷ storage areas for ash and clinkers, liquid wastes, leaching effluents and metallic waste; ཛྷ ཛྷ a maintenance unit. ASN conducted four inspections on the Centraco site in 2017. ASN considers that the current organisation of the facility enables the installations to function with a suitable level of safety. 1.5 Management of waste from small-scale nuclear activities 1.5.1 Management of waste from non-BNI nuclear activities The issues and implications The use of unsealed sources in nuclear medicine, biomedical or industrial research creates solid and liquid waste: small laboratory equipment used to prepare sources, medical equipment used for administration, remains from meals served (uneaten foodstuffs, containers, and cutlery) to patients who have received injections for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes, etc. Radioactive liquid effluents also come from source preparation as well as from patients who eliminate the administered radioactivity by natural routes. The diversity of waste from small-scale nuclear activities, the large number of establishments producing it and the radiation protection issues involved, have led the public authorities to regulate the management of the waste produced by these activities. Management of disused sealed sources considered as waste Sealed sources are used for medical, industrial, research and veterinary applications (see chapters 9 and 10). Once they have been used, and if their suppliers do not envisage their reuse in any way, they are considered to be radioactive waste and must be managed as such. The management of sealed sources considered to be waste, and their disposal in particular, must take into consideration the dual constraint of concentrated activity and a potentially attractive appearance in the event of human intrusion after loss of the memory of a disposal facility. This dual constraint therefore limits the types of sources that can be accepted in disposal facilities, especially surface facilities. Further to the PNGMDR 2013-2015, the CEA submitted to the State in late 2014 a summary report of its work concerning: ཛྷ ཛྷ continuation of Andra’s study of the conditions of acceptance of these sealed sources in disposal facilities; ཛྷ ཛྷ consolidated batching of disused sealed sources in order to determine a reference solution for each batch; ཛྷ ཛྷ with regard to the existing disposal centres, Andra’s assessment of the conditions for acceptance of disused sealed sources, if necessary modifying the acceptance specifications but without compromising the safety of the disposal centres; ཛྷ ཛྷ a study of the requirements in terms of treatment and packaging facilities to enable them to be accepted in existing or planned disposal centres; ཛྷ ཛྷ a study of the requirements in terms of interim storage facilities; ཛྷ ཛྷ optimised technical and economic planning of the acceptance and elimination of disused sealed sources in the light of the availability of processing, storage and disposal facilities and transport constraints. Furthermore, Decree 2015-231 of 27th February 2015 enables holders of disused sealed sources to call upon not only the initial source supplier but also any licensed supplier or – as a last resort – Andra, to manage these sources. These provisions should bring a reduction in the costs of collecting disused sources and provide a recovery route in all situations. Management by Andra of waste from small-scale nuclear activities Article L. 542-12 of the Environment Code entrusts Andra with a public service mission for waste produced by small- scale nuclear activities. Since 2012, Cires – situated in the municipalities of Morvilliers and La Chaise – is Andra’s collection centre and storage facility for waste from small producers other than nuclear power plants. ASN considers that the approach adopted by Andra will be sufficient to meet the duties entrusted to it under Article L. 542- 12 of the Environment Code and that this must be continued. Nevertheless, the tritiated solid waste will have to be managed along with the waste from ITER (Intermed project) in a storage facility operated by the CEA. However, the delays in the ITER project schedule are impacting the Intermed project schedule and the management strategy for tritiated waste from small producers. In its opinion of 24th November 2016, ASN asked the CEA to take into account the shift in the projected date of Intermed commissioning in the studies to compare tritiated waste management solutions carried out for the PNGMDR and to define, before 31st December 2017, a revised strategy for the storage of tritiated waste from installations other than ITER.