I get your point re. regulation.

But for clarity, recycling spent fuel doesn't eliminate the need to store spent fuel... the hot isotopes are still hot and still need to be stored. Recycling separates the very hot stuff (which needs very long-term stoarge) from not-so hot stuff which will decay sooner, and also separates out unburned fuel and which can be repackaged in new fuel and isotopes which can be used in medicine and industry (mostly for imaging).

Elements cannot be destroyed or modified (outside of a reactor core), they can only be chemically or physically separated from each other. If it has a long half-life, you're stuck with it.