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RE: mailing radioactive material



Title: RE: mailing radioactive material
This is probably a moot point, as the subject was thorium nitrate.  The USPS regs are pretty restrictive about dangerous goods - basically, if it needs a label (in the shipping sense) you can't send it.
 
Thorium nitrate is both radioactive and an oxidizer.  This is what Franz Schoenhofer was referring to when he mentioned explosive characteristics - it doesn't explode in itself, but it facilitates combustion/explosion of other materials.
 
A number of years ago, a field researcher sent me a radium dial compass as part of an exposure investigation.  He blithely sent it US Mail.  In a manila envelope.  To send it back, I had to pack it in a jar of lead shot, and overpack that in an 18 inch cubic box of Styrofoam 'peanuts'.  That got it under the surface dose rate limits - just.
 
Dave Neil
-----Original Message-----
From: Morgan, Ben [mailto:ben.morgan@pgnmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 9:45 AM
To: 'Jacobus, John (OD/ORS)'; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: RE: mailing radioactive material

Greetings:

The USPS offers both tracking and delivery confirmation services. See

http://www.usps.com/shipping/trackandconfirmfaqs.htm

Regards,

Ben

ben.morgan@pgnmail.com