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European organisation launched for cooperation in waste disposal

Friday, 8 January 2021

The European Repository Development Organisation was launched yesterday by Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, with other countries expected to join soon. It aims for member countries to work together to address the common challenges of safely managing long-lived radioactive wastes, including establishing shared multinational geological repositories.

Before its establishment, the national organisations worked together for the past 10 years in the ERDO Working Group. This was founded with support of 10 Members States in 2009, following comprehensive feasibility studies (the SAPIERR projects) into multinational disposal in Europe, organised by the Arius Association and funded by the European Commission. Fourteen European countries were involved in SAPIERR and 13 are, or have been, involved with ERDO work over the past decade.

ERDO was officially established yesterday in Vlissingen, the Netherlands by the signing of the articles of association by Dansk Dekommissionering (Dekom) from Denmark, Norsk Nukleær Dekommisjonering (NND) from Norway and the Central Organisation for Radioactive Waste (Covra) from the Netherlands.

Other organisations from the working group will join the association over the coming weeks. These include Slovenia's Agency for Radioactive Waste Management; Austria's Bundesministerium für Landwirt-schaft, Regionen und Tourismus; Italy's ENEA; and Croatia's Fond-NEK.

The new association will allow organisations to work more closely together by sharing knowledge, implementing joint projects and promoting multinational waste management solutions internationally.

The association secretariat is located in the Covra office in Nieuwdorp. The founding board members are: Ewoud Verhoef of Covra (President), Ole Kastbjerg Nielsen of Dekom (Vice President) and Håvard Kristiansen of NND (Treasurer).