Publication Laka-library:
Managing radioactive waste from small generators
| Author | ANDRA |
| Date | 1998 |
| Classification | 2.02.4.10/14 (FRANCE - WASTE (ANDRA)) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
The ANDRA manages radioactive waste…all radioactive waste. Not only the waste generated by Électricité de France (EDF), the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) or the COGEMA, not only the waste deriving from electricity generation in nuclear power plants, but all radioactive waste which requires a specific management system. Consequently, the ANDRA has more than a thousand customers among hospitals, research centres and the industry which use radioactivity in their daily activities, of all which generate waste. If the number of these small generators is significant, the quantity of their waste is very low. In some cases, it amounts only to a single waste drum a year or even every two years! This explains why the generators often don't have the technical means to manage adequately their radioactive waste on their own. The ANDRA is therefore responsible for taking over their waste in order to process it according to the same rigorous standards as the waste generated by big generators. With regard to small generators, the ANDRA fulfils a dual role: • A technical role, by collecting, sorting, packaging, monitoring and disposing of their waste. • An advisory role, because a "good" waste package must be prepared at the earliest stage possible. ANDRA engineers travel across France to train and inform people who use radioactivity. And since the use of radioactivity is not recent, the ANDRA is also active in the clean-up of industrial sites which have either been abandoned or are destined to new activities. ANDRA, you said? The French National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management, better known as the ANDRA (Agence nationale pour la gestion des dechets radioactifs), is a State- owned company and is independent from waste generators. Its statute and its mandates were defined by the legislator in the Law of 30 December 1991. Being in charge of the management of radioactive waste generated in France, the ANDRA assumes a genuine responsibility towards the community. To carry out that mandate, for example, it maintains an inventory of all radioactive waste existing throughout France in order to keep track of the waste, but it also ensures its safe management. For the last 70 years, well before the existence of nuclear power plants, radioactivity has been introduced in many aspects of our daily life... and so has radioactive waste.
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