Radioactive Recycling

[Andy Hull <hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov>]

The following Public Citizen News item from the Jan/Feb 1998 issue of
Public Citizen (Vol.18 No.1) may be of interest:

The nuclear power  industry and he federal government's nuclear weapons
facilities have an expensive problem that they want to dump on the American
public: thousands of tons of dangerous radiactive (sic) metal.  Under a
scheme hatched by the industry and government, the radioactive metal would
be recycled into household products.  Now the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) is considering the plan, which would put the health and safety
of the American public at risk. 

This is not the first time that radioactive metal recycling has been
proposed. The Nuclear >Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of
Energy (DOE)() have made tons of radioactive metal must be disposed of
responsibly in the coming decades  or families could be exposed to
radioactivity over and over again--through a whole range of household
items.  The nations's weapons facilities are responsible for 1.3 million
tons of carbon and stainless steel and 38,000 tons of copper, currently in
storage. The shutdown of nuclear power plants could result in 93,000 tons
of steel and stainless steel and 2,800 tons of copper in the year 2000.

The EPA is currently examining documents that review the recycling and
reuse of metal from nuclear facilities, and is determining "acceptable"
levels of radioactivity in waste metal. The NRC is pushing the EPA to deem
the recycling of radioactive metal of "marginal risk to safety."

Public Citizens's Critical Mass Energy Project believes that EPA should
work toward a zero tolerance for recycled radioactive metal and should
effectively radioactivity in consumer items.