[ RadSafe ] More radioactive debris turning up in garbage

[Andrew Lukban]

So the hot waste can either come from a hospital or from someone's home.
If it comes from a hospital, the hospital gets fined because the waste
is traceable. If it comes from anywhere else, someone gets fined but it
is not likely the hospital because it is not "usually" traceable to the
hospital nor are all sources of alarms due to medical use RAM ending up
in hospital waste. My very biased viewpoint is that the hospital should
not get fined... let the patients go home :)

The waste industry does know the problem and does know how to minimise
the "annoyance alarms". Some interesting links where the waste industry
themselves have studied the problem and made reccomendations:

http://www.astswmo.org/Publications/pdf/radiomatsurveyfinalreport.pdf

http://www.lacity.org/ead/EADWeb-MWR/lea/Workshop%20Binder%20Material/RadiationReport%20Florida.pdf





>>> <Marty.Bourquin at grace.com> 04/28/05 10:14 AM >>> 
The issue really isnt whether or not the waste is exempted. If it sets 
off the montiors at the landfill it will not be accepted by the landfill

operator. Once that alarm goes off most facilities want nothing to do 
with it. They will typically just call in someone (regulator) to take 
care of the problem - often by making the truck sit till it decays. 

Education, Education Education 

Marty Bourquin 
Manager EHS, RSO 
W.R. Grace 
Chattanooga, TN