Antinuclear

The growing danger of radiation in imported products

U.S. officials and metal experts say evidence is mounting that radioactive metal from abroad is increasingly — and intentionally — being sent to the United States, sometimes decades after the contaminated material was first detected and returned to its source.

Some experts say the United States bears some blame for the infiltration of tainted metal and products. Even though there is little debate that radiation-laced material is unwelcome, neither Congress nor federal agencies have established a “safe” level of contamination, despite two decades of wrestling with the issue

Recycled radioactive metal contaminates consumer products: “It’s your worst nightmare,” Engineering Evil, October 20, 2012
 2009 report posted for filing  Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com @…….,.The global dimension of the recycling of radiation problem is large, and growing, experts say.
Between 2006 and 2007, for instance, authorities in the Netherlands found about 900 women’s handbags that had originated in India and were decorated with metal rings laced with Cobalt-60 on each bag’s shoulder strap. Once discovered, they were sent to a radioactive waste site in the Netherlands.

Last fall, radioactive metal also from India was used by a Connecticut company to make 500 sets of buttons for Otis elevators in France and Sweden. No one realized the elevator buttons — which had been installed — were radioactive until a similar shipment tripped radiation alarms at the U.S. border with Mexico, according to Otis Elevator spokesman Dilip Rangnekar.
Otis scrambled to remove the tainted buttons from the elevator cabs, Rangnekar said. But an international authority on rogue radiation said it is likely even more of the buttons remain in circulation.
“Thousands and thousands were produced,” said Abel Gonzalez, a former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s division of radiation and waste safety. “I doubt they have found all of them.”
U.S. officials and metal experts say evidence is mounting that radioactive metal from abroad is increasingly — and intentionally — being sent to the United States, sometimes decades after the contaminated material was first detected and returned to its source.
In 1991, an Indian supplier sent to the United States more than 50 shipments of chain-link fencing, some of which was tainted. Investigators found the fencing scattered around the country, including in Florida, Tennessee, New York and Washington state.
The NRC told them not to ship more material to the U.S., but it allowed them to keep what was here, here,” said Paul Frame, a radiation expert at the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
But a decade later, another shipment of tainted Indian fencing reached the United States, Frame said.
“My guess was that it was the same stuff,” he said. “You suspect that in some cases they know the material is radioactive but they’re going to ship it out anyway because it’s money.”
John Williamson, administrator of Florida’s radiation control bureau, agrees and predicts that tainted steel from China and products from India will continue to surface, at the borders and on the plant floors.
One reason is that, after U.S. customs rejects a load of contaminated material, no one knows what happens once it is sent back to its overseas producer because no tracking system exists, he and other front-line experts said.
“In China and India, who knows what happens?” Williamson said. “My belief is it goes back into the hopper.”
NRC reports give weight to his belief. Construction reinforcement materials from Mexico laced with Cobalt-60 that were detected at the border in 2006 were traced back to metal from a contaminated batch produced and exported more than 20 years before by two Juarez, Mexico, foundries.
Some experts say the United States bears some blame for the infiltration of tainted metal and products. Even though there is little debate that radiation-laced material is unwelcome, neither Congress nor federal agencies have established a “safe” level of contamination, despite two decades of wrestling with the issue…… http://engineeringevil.com/2012/10/20/recycled-radioactive-metal-contaminates-consumer-products-common-kitchen-cheese-graters-reclining-chairs-womens-handbags-etc/

December 25, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized