[ RadSafe ] More radioactive debris turning up in garbage

[BLHamrick at aol.com]

I think everyone has gone over the issues related to patient waste at  
landfills, but I wanted to make a few comments on this topic as well.  We  need a 
reasonable solution, because it is an enormous waste of resources for the  State 
agencies to continue to respond to these alarms.
 
First of all, there are many handheld spectroscopy systems available today  
that are very easy to use.  They could be loaded with a library that only  
contained the common medical isotopes, so that anything "unknown" would require  a 
professional level response.
 
Second, the landfill operators could still call in a report, give  
information to the State program regarding isotope identification, dose-rate,  whether 
the load was commercial or residential, and a reasonable decision could  be 
made over the phone as to whether or not the material could be buried, or if  
there needed to be an additional response.
 
Third, this would require cooperation between the agencies (often local)  
responsible for landfill permitting and the State agency responsible for the  
radioactive materials in the public domain (i.e., NRC generally does not respond  
to these incidents in the states in which they maintain jurisdiction, unless 
and  until there is some demonstration that it is "licensed" material).  The  
cooperation required would be an amendment to permits to allow the burial of  
some of these wastes, based on a reasonable set of criteria (i.e., short  
half-life, common medical isotope, reasonably low activity, and from a  
residential pick-up), and consultation by phone with the responsible State  agency.
 
I think a simple model program could be worked out to everyone's  advantage.  
In this case, it would not take an act of Congress, because  both the AEA and 
compatible Agreement State statutes and regulations permit  exceptions to 
requirements for disposal of these materials, so long as the  disposal 
alternatives are technically sound, and will not result in  significant dose.
 
Barbara