The Recycling business unit uses processes to retrieve fresh energy resources from used nuclear fuel and to package and stabilize final waste safely for its electric utility customers.

After used fuel treatment, recyclable products - uranium and plutonium - are recovered, ready for recycling.

The uranium is stored in stable form and therefore represents a reserve of energy-producing matter. Part of the uranium is recycled in the form of fuel.

Plutonium allows notably the manufacture of another type of fuel: MOX, a mixture of uranium oxide and plutonium, of which AREVA is the world's top producer.

In the international non-proliferation treaties context, the group is also working on operations which consist in recycling military plutonium into fuel for civil use. This concerns the United States and the Russian Federation within the framework of a program of elimination of excess military plutonium.

 Customers

Utilities as well as operators, organizations and institutes in charge of managing the back end of the fuel cycle are the Recycling business unit's leading customers, particularly in France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

EDF is the largest customer in terms of volume for the business unit.

The United States, Japan and the United Kingdom are also interested in the Recycling business unit's technologies for its fabrication facility construction projects.

 Locations

The Recycling business unit operates 2 plants in France:

 the Melox plant, world leader in the MOX fuel fabrication market

 the La Hague plant in Normandy, which separates recyclable materials and waste.

Within the AREVA group, Recycling operations are both handled by AREVA NC.