How it works
Each waste owner and producer is required by law to declare its waste inventory (every year) and forecast (every 3 year), using a web platform developed by Andra.
Andra compiles and verifies the end point associated with the waste streams declared. Andra also uses various sources of information to achieve the best possible completeness and accuracy of the inventory.
declarations are received and analyzed by Andra each year
of radioactive waste in France at the end of 2016
The principles
- Availability of information
Tthe objective is to make available a realistic inventory to the public authorities, for the development of the National Plan for the Management of Materials and Radioactive Waste (PNGMDR), corresponding to the best vision of waste producers at the time of their declaration. At the same time, data must be made comprehensible for a wide public, without abusing a technical vocabulary, to meet the information requirement of the citizens
- Completeness
The National Inventory identifies existing wastes related to recent and ongoing productions, but also to past productions since the beginning of the uses of radioactivity properties whether industrial, defense or medical. The objective is to present a "photograph" of all the waste present on the French territory at a given moment, whatever their physical or chemical state, conditioned or not, liquid or solid, of strong or weak radioactivity.
The scope of the inventory is not limited to storing of waste and materials. It also extends to polluted sites and all facilities with, even temporarily, deposits pending support by Andra, for example in medical or university research laboratories.
- Neutrality
The National Inventory presents the information collected in a factual manner, without making any judgment about the dangerousness or otherwise of the situations and modes of management described.
- Transparency
The National Inventory presents an image of all radioactive materials and waste, regardless of their origin. This approach is complementary to the efforts of transparency, initiated several years ago by the public authorities, the producers of waste and the Nuclear Safety Authority and required by the 2006 Law related to the transparency and the safety in nuclear material.
To respect this principle of transparency, a steering committee, chaired by Andra's CEO and made up of members external to the Agency, oversees the development of the National Inventory.
- Reporting responsibility and verifications by Andra
The National Inventory presents the data reported by the waste producers. Each producer is therefore responsible for his declaration. Andra has no police power, but the regulatory provisions of the Environmental Code enable it to appeal to the administration, where appropriate, in the event of a producer or waste owner’s failure to meet its reporting obligations. In addition, Andra verifies the relevance of the waste management route proposed by the producer. The reporting obligations of the producers or owners of waste do not, however, exempt the Agency from ensuring the completeness of its inventory by cross-checking various sources of information, and in particular by analyzing the national and regional press. When the presence of radioactive waste is confirmed on sites not yet listed, they integrate the National Inventory during the next update.