Arguing the case for the acceptance of uranium mining in Australia to a federal committee, France-based Areva said if uranium is mined and exported in Australia the waste should be transported back for storage.
"I think we probably do have a moral obligation," said Stephen Mann, general manager of Cogema Australia, Areva's mining subsidiary.
"Waste material could be stored very safely in depositories."
Areva Group is a vertically integrated nuclear company, involved in every stage of nuclear energy from mining to power generation.
It produces 20 per cent of the world's uranium via its mining subsidiary COGEMA, which also has exploration projects in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland.
The storage of uranium waste, a bi-product of the processing of uranium for power generation, is a contentious issue in the nuclear debate.
Federal member of Kalgoorlie Barry Haase, who sits on the federal uranium committee, said the storage of uranium waste was largely misunderstood by the general public.
"One of the great problems in discussing anything nuclear is the fallacy in relation to the danger of the stored waste products," Haase said.
Mining industry body the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) is pro-uranium mining but research and policy officer Alan Layton does not think Australia should be responsible for disposing of waste from other countries.
"I am not certain about this notion that when we sell uranium we have to take back the waste," Layton said.
"If you send a live sheep overseas and it is gutted and they don't use the gut we don't take the gut back and bury it in the Gibson Desert."
He said it was safer to bury the waste at the point where the product is used, rather than transporting it.
The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Industry and Resources is hearing evidence for its inquiry into the development of the non-fossil fuel energy industry in Australia.
Source: AAP NewsWire