2. Long-term management of low- and intermediate-level short-lived waste

2.1 Lessons learned from the operation of the Manche storage facility

The CSM (Centre de stockage de la Manche) is the first repository to be operated in France. Located north-west of the Cotentin peninsula, it was authorized by decree in 1969 and received waste packages until June 1994. The Aube storage center (CSA) gradually took over from 1992 onwards. During its 25 years of operation, some 1,470,000 packages were delivered to the 15-hectare site. After further treatment and conditioning, this led to the storage of around 920,000 packages representing 527,000 m ³ (figure 3 ).