[ RadSafe ] More radioactive debris turning up in garbage

[Bradt, Clayton (LABOR)]

Radiation monitors at landfills serve no purpose, but create enormous
expense.  Household items contaminated with patient excreta do not pose
a hazard. They should be allowed to enter the landfill unmolested.  The
current practice of holding up waste loads containing such items and/or
carting them back to the originator actually causes more exposure to
more people than just burying them in the first place would.  This is
also true for potentially hazardous sources that could find their way
inadvertently into trash.  Burying them quickly minimizes the collective
dose.  By the time a source has reached the landfill, most of the dose
has already been delivered, so detecting it at that point does no one
any good.  (If leachate from a landfill is contaminating drinking water,
any radioactive component is of trivial concern.)
 
If the idea is to prevent deliberate illegal disposal of dangerous
radiation sources, the place to focus is at the licensees' facilities,
not the landfill.  Better oversight at the front end is much more cost
effective than chasing after errant sources that get away.
 
Clayton J. Bradt, CHP