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Just to add my two cents worth... I buy a fair number of lantern
mantles to replace those that my Boy Scout troop destroys on each
campout. The recent Colemans ("gold top" and green top) will no
longer set my GM clicking - nor do they cause any interest on my NaI
detector. The current Century Primus brand still contains thorium.
The most recent Primus brand even had a statement on the package that
the mantles contained small quantities of radioactive material. It's
probably been three years since I last bought a radioactive Coleman
brand mantle.
I did (and do) an occasional public demonstration of changing a mantle
and then surveying my hands. If I'm using a thorium mantle I have
never failed to find contamination. I then proceed to point out how
easily it washes off (and down the sink or onto the campground). The
next step is to point out that limits on intake of Thorium oxide are
substantially lower than Pu - in other words the hazard from the same
level of contamination is greater for Th. Finally I point out that if
I received this level of contamination in my workplace (a DOE national
lab), I would have a reportable occurrence with lots of paperwork
reports to fill out and explain what I was going to do to prevent if
from happening again. I then ask why the more hazardous thorium is
readily available without controls for the general public, yet the
public and press gets so excited over Pu. It's usually a pretty
effective demonstration.
Gene Carbaugh
eh_carbaugh@pnl.gov