Radioactive Products in the Home: More of Them Than You’d Think
Filed Under: Environmental News on June 18, 2009
A recent Scripps News investigation found that there are a lot of consumer products in the United States (and elsewhere) that are tainted with radioactivity. Imports into the U.S. are not usually checked for this and the effected products might surprise you.
The investigation found that radioactive waste is sometimes mixed with other metals in scrap yards and “recycled” into metallic products (usually overseas) and then made into consumer products that are then imported and sold.
The problem here is that the issue is on-going. Once radioactive materials enter the scrap yard and are mixed with normal metals, they are usually there to stay. They’ll be made into something else and eventually returned to the scrap heap and recycled again.
Since most radioactive isotopes can be that way for millenea, it’s not something that just disappears. It can only be watered down or isolated and removed for disposal. Most nations, including the U.S., have few if any rules regarding radioactive wastes that are not considered of high enough level to pose a danger.
Almost always, those that are dangerous are the ones that cause a problem in the near-term (burns, sickness, etc.). Those that can cause problems in the longer term (years or decades) are not generally labeled as a danger and are often mixed into other scrap for recycling.
Nobody knows the true scale of this risk, but it’s likely to be higher than we’d think. There are no agencies for testing scrap, recycled metals, or products in this way.
So what kind of stuff gets dumped into scrap that causes this contamination?
Well, there are literally hundreds of thousands of products that use low-level radiation as part of their performance. A lot of medical machinery, some of the parts in your car, and even those ion-based smoke detectors you have in your home are all radioactive. It’s a question of how radioactive, not whether, though.
Most products with a radioactivity level will be labeled as such, but are not in themselves necessarily dangerous. The worry comes when many of them are mixed in one place.
So that imported ice cream scoop your buying? Ya, it might be radioactive. Is it going to kill you or cause cancer? Not likely.
However, if your ice cream scoop, your refrigerator door seal, the steel toes in your work boots, your flashlight, your cheese grater, and your pocket knife are all emitting low levels of radiation?
Well, that could be a problem, eventually.
So be aware that this is around you and of the products you’re buying. I’m not advocating that you hit the nearest Army/Navy store to get a Geiger counter, but this is something that you should know about.
How can the problem be solved? Good question, I don’t know for sure. I doubt a government-based solution will do much good. They can’t even deliver the mail without gonig into debt. Maybe if enough of us ask Consumer Reports or another, similar group to start testing products for radioactivity and included that in their reviews? That might be a good start.
Awareness and letting others know is the key here. The more of us that are aware of the issue, the more likely we will be to get a good, workable solution to remedy it.
To read the entire investigation by Scripps News, follow this link.
