Claussmann Lisa

PhD Student, Université Paris Diderot

Contact: lisa.claussmann(at)gmail.com

 

Dissertation title (working title): Underground storage of toxic waste : Stocamine, a case study in Alsace, France

Under the supervision of Soraya Boudia (Cermes3) and Hélène Michel (Sage)

This work questions the technical and political difficulties to manage toxic waste, which are dangerous over a long period of time and cannot be neither recycled nor recovered.

Toxic waste represents about 3% of the total amount of waste produced in France. Although this percentage is rather low in comparison with other types of waste, they may have irreversible impacts on bodies and on the environment. In this work, I focus on Stocamine, the only experience of underground storage of toxic waste in France. Stocamine is a mine where more than 42 000 of tones of toxic waste are stored. The underground storage lies twenty-five meters below what was a potash mine during the 20th century. Specifically designed for such activities, the exploitation of the mine stopped only a couple of years after it started due to an underground fire.

This work focuses on the Stocamine case and analyses how ultimate toxic waste are politically and technically thought and managed.