RE: A surprising finding of NORM

[Sonter Mark <sonterm@EPA.NSW.GOV.AU>]

	Hello, all out there in Radsafe-land!!



	I have just returned from a large metal recycling facility where the

truck portal radiation detector was set off by a top-loading automatic

domestic washing machine....



	It turns out that the washing machine has a hollow plastic

ballasting and balancing ring fixed (as part of the original design) around

the top of the bowl, and the weighting material in the balancing ring is

---(wait for it) ---- heavy mineral sands --- containing (as one would

expect) thorium and its decay chain daughters...



	Has anybody else seen this??



	What other circumstances exist where mineral sands get used as

ballast and thus introduce a radioactive component where one might not

otherwise expect it??



	Mark Sonter

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