[ RadSafe ] Radioexcretia, etc. in municipal solid waste

John Jacobus crispy_bird at yahoo.com
Thu Apr 28 18:46:39 CEST 2005


My assumption is that waste regulators do not want
short-lived radioactive matieral as NRC and state
regulators do not allow ANY radioactive waste to be
disposed in non-NRC licensed facilities.  Maybe it is
time for a pardigm shift to exempt short-lived waste
for landfil disposal.  You can dispose of the
radioactive patient waste into the sanitary sewage
systems.  Do you see the contradiction between the two
disposal streams?

--- "George J. Vargo" <vargo at physicist.net> wrote:
> John,
> 
> What you cite below is true insofar as radiation
> protection regulations are
> concerned.  They do not bind the solid waste
> regulators who have their own
> regulations.  Rightly or wrongly, the solid waste
> regulators do not want
> radioactive material; buried with municipal solid
> waste.  You may not like
> it, it may make absolutely no sense, but that's the
> reality.  In
> Pennsylvania each solid waste transfer station is
> required by state
> regulation to have portal monitors that are set at
> 20 micro-R/hr above
> background.  This causes the identification of all
> manner of medical waste
> and NORM including I-131 contaminated dressings,
> I-131 contaminated kitty
> litter from veterinary procedures, weld rod,
> refractory brick, and the
> occasional radium-bearing luminous bulkhead marker,
> to name just a few.
> 
> George J. Vargo, Ph.D., CHP
> Senior Scientist
> MJW Corporation
> http://www.mjwcorp.com
> 610-925-3377
> 610-925-5545 (fax)
> vargo at physicist.net
> 
> 
> Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 05:56:59 -0700 (PDT)
> From: John Jacobus <crispy_bird at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] More radioactive debris
> turning up in garbage
> To: Jose Julio Rozental <joseroze at netvision.net.il>,
> radsafe at radlab.nl
> Message-ID:
> <20050428125659.10063.qmail at web54306.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> Maybe the laws need to be changed so that patient
> waste is exempted.  See
>
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part020/part020-2003.html
> 
> 10 CFR 20.2003(b)Excreta from individuals undergoing
> medical diagnosis or therapy with radioactive
> material
> are not subject to the limitations contained in
> paragraph (a) of this section.
> 
> 
> 
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+++++++++++++++++++
"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com


		
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