Published: January 13th, 2012 at 7:04 am ET
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Tissue holders pulled from stores in NY, elsewhere, AP, Jan. 12, 2012:
Metal tissue holders contaminated with low levels of radioactive material may have been distributed to Bed, Bath & Beyond stores [...]
Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman David McIntyre said [...] someone keeping one of the boxes on a vanity in the bathroom and spending about 30 minutes a day near it for a year would receive the equivalent of a couple of chest x-rays. [...]
The products were shipped from India [...]
The Nassau County Department of Health, where two of the boxes were shipped to the retailer’s stores, said the items were removed and taken to a “safe location.” The county Health Commissioner reiterated that the boxes posed “no imminent public threat.”
Authorities said the tissue holders contain manmade cobalt-60 [...]
Published: January 13th, 2012 at 7:04 am ET
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WTF!! If there is no connection between this product and Japan, then things are quite worrying to say the least!! Recalling items because they aren’t fit isn’t enough. How is it they became so contaminated in the first place? What is going on out there in the world of industry? What about the things that do slip through the net and end up in our possession that are potentially harmful? I’ve been testing ceramic tiles lately for radioactivity and my guestimation is that there probably isn’t a single bathroom that doesn’t emit twice the background radiation! Even though it’s naturally occurring in the ceramic’s clay, why do we have to throw radium and thorium into the glase?? That little extra shine comes at a price it appears!! It makes you wonder about everything else we use doesn’t it? and what we’re not told about as far as production methods! With each step into the future we have to be on our guard more and more!!! DUDES!!!!!!!!
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Take a good long look at Fukushima and the lands all arount it that were devestated by the tsunami. Plutonium has been found 3 miles (admitted to so far) from the reactors, lying on the ground. Now lets try and calculate how much of the metal lying about the affected areas of Japan has become radioactive. From plutonium fuel pellet bits, fuel fleas, smoke, dust, etc. This metal will be recycled. Think it is being checked? Think it is being ‘decontaminated’ (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean)? Wanna buy a bridge? How about some ‘prime realestate in southern Florida’?
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The shipment of tissue boxes originated from India:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2012/20120111en.html#en47575tissue
And look at this NRC event in Massachusetts where a broken exit sign causes release of radiation! Putting nuclear waste in metal signs?
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2012/20120111en.html#en47574
Article on the DOE and radioactive materials in the marketplace:
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/BNFL+DOE.html
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Some signs use tritium for that glowin-the-dark property:
http://www.theexitstore.com/exit_sign_info/facts-about-tritium-signs.htm
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Interesting story at several levels, for example:
1. NRC standard talking points.
2. Goods landed at NJ but didn’t trigger any alarms until CA. Maybe the gazillion dollar security system isn’t very effective.
3. Everyone is panicked about potential Fukushima imports, but meanwhile.
4. The government feels it must not tell the public where they’ve taken these things to, and of course they assure the public that although they items are not dangerous they have taken them somewhere safe.
5. How many more radiation “oopsies” are out there?
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re: “Fveryone is panicked about potential Fukushima imports”
Actually, the bizarre reality is that hardly anyone (aside from visitors to this site) is even thinking about Japanese imports possibly being contaminated.
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Yes, you’re right, lam335. I guess I was thinking about the watchdogs here – we’re all looking one way and something sneaks up from behind, as it were.
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Let’s not forget, fish from Korea as well…
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How much water can ‘one’ hold back in a sieve?
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Depends, is the NRC or TEPCO reporting the results?
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Inappropriate medical device disposal and unregulated scrap recycling in India…?
(among other countries)
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I think they had to turn all the radiation detectors off at all the major shipping ports and airports.
Everything coming from Japan is hot – the entire ship is hot, the airplane, the crew, the passengers, the cargo.
All the containers coming across the Pacific are pelted with radiation
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Everytime someone from Japan gets on a plane, you run the risk of them carrying radioactive shit on the plane. From the dust trapped in the soles of the running shoes, to their own hair falling out, the candy bar wrapper they drop on the floor, or magazine they leave in the seat back. Think about that, the sources of contamination are endless. And those planes do nothing but fly around the world, over and over again…..
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It’s worse than that. Those planes fly back and forth to and from Japan every day.
They’ve flown through the clouds of plutonium, the clouds of cesium and strontium and everthing else.
They aren’t sealed up tight. The cabin air comes directly out of bleed ports off the engine compressor – just after it’s sucked into the engine. It goes through something that looks like a large car cabin filter and then gets dumped into the passenger compartment.
I bet if you checked one of those filters it would be highly radioactive.
I bet the entire air system of the plane is contaminated.
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Agreed 100% . TEPCO cant use the excuse of “Oh its the same dose as a long haul flight” to cover their lies anymore.
Makes me wonder what the next excuse will be…
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Not sure what the present status of this is:
“The nuclear industry and their government allies are at it again! They want to recycle radioactive metal scrap from nuclear power plants and DOE weapons facilities into household items. Citizens must act now to stop this sham recycling scheme.
WHATS HAPPENING : The DOE has a huge stockpile of radioactive scrap metal.
One proposed method is to recycle it into consumer products. Before DOE can proceed with this irresponsible plan, they need the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set standards. EPA has begun this process by writing a Preliminary Technical Support Document and the Preliminary Cost-Benefit Analysis. These documents look at the feasibility of recycling radioactive scrap metal into consumer products. This is the beginning of a rule making that could result in radioactive metal being made into strollers, appliances, bed frames, belt buckles–anything made from metal. These documents are available on their website:
Scrap Metal Project HomePage Publications
Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, Radiation Protection Division
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/scrap/scrappub.htm
… Throughout the 1980′s, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in conjunction with the Department of Energy (DOE), sought to deregulate radioactive waste and call it “below regulatory concern”. Under this scheme, roughly 30% of the nation’s “low-level” radioactive waste could be treated as normal garbage and disposed of in municipal solid waste landfills or incinerators. Furthermore it would have allowed production of consumer goods from these materials, most frequently through recycling the waste.
WHAT YOU CAN DO : The public is being asked to review and send in their comments on these documents by January 31, 1998….”
http://ratical.org/radiation/STOPradScrapRecyc.html
http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/2011/12/recycled-radioactive-metals-may-be-in.html
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If anyone has more current information on this issue, I’d be interested in hearing/reading about it.
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The headline is really prophetic when you think about it, By the time this is done, we will realize much more fully that the great historical plan for increasing our level of comfort thru industry and credit was a lie and humans have let corporations take a big radioactive dump in our bed, our bath, and everywhere else.
I think we’ll find looking back, that the way to live most securely is be learning to Party Like The Amish.
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No, no, no,…say it isn’t so James 2. Do you mean to say that even the cargo containers that were smiling,…are irradiated also?
Are you saying that EVERYTHING that comes into contact with these things, are destined to ‘get it’? James,..how can you be so ‘literal’?
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Everything is contaminated – I bet by now every item in your local Walmart that came through the cloud while on a boat crossing the pacific from China has at least a bit of contamination on it.
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Bed, Bath and Beyond…HUGE consumer trap…boycott…
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“…The dismantling of nuclear weapons production facilities and the decommissioning of nuclear fuel-cycle facilities and commercial nuclear power plants are expected to generate large amounts of slightly contaminated radioactive scrap metals (RSMs). The potential economic values of the metals, combined with the escalating costs of disposal, provide incentives to seek options for recycling the RSMs. EVS has evaluated potential alternatives, including (1) recycling and reuse and (2) disposal and replacement. Human health and environmental risk assessments have been performed as key elements in this evaluation process.
…. Recycling alternatives offer lower overall risks. Environmental impacts from the disposal alternative… were found to be orders of magnitude higher than those from some recycling alternatives. This finding is true for land, water, and air quality, as well as for mineral and energy resources. Recycling of RSM is advantageous in terms of risk, cost, and environmental impact; however, questions remain regarding public acceptability, sensitive industrial uses of metals, and international flows of RSMs.
…EVS plans to continue assisting DOE with issues associated with RSM recycling, including participation in the DOE “Recycle 2000″ initiative to use RSM in construction of waste disposal containers. Additionally, the team continues to provide risk assessment input to DOE regarding the sale of slightly contaminated nickel ingots to a European nation.
http://www.evs.anl.gov/project/dsp_fsdetail.cfm?id=2
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Those are alarming posts, lam335. Good finds, but very distressing – yet another front to fight on.
“Where there’s muck there’s brass” – old Yorkshire saying – but the muck of old wasn’t as lethal as today’s version.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/408900.html
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“… the upper bound of carbon steel scrap generated by DOE facilities and commercial nuclear power plants and available for free release and recycle is on the order of a million metric tons. This scrap would be released to the secondary metal industry over a period of decades. Therefore, the total quantity of carbon steel scrap from nuclear facilities entering the recycling stream is small in comparison to the annual consumption of 6 × 107 t. Quantities of other types of scrap metal potentially available from nuclear facilities, such as aluminum and copper, are also small in comparison with the annual consumption….”
“… Furthermore, most of the scrap metal generated at a nuclear facility will never have been exposed to radioactive contamination. This clean metal would thus serve to dilute the residually contaminated scrap …” [OR IN OTHER WORDS, THE CONTAMINATION WILL BE SPREAD INTO THE REST OF THE METAL, SO THAT, OVER TIME, VIRTUALLY ALL METAL WILL HAVE SOME TRACES OF THE STUFF]
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/source-management/tsd/scrap_tsd_041802_ch2.pdf
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Reduced to it’s smallest meaning,….we are ALL being martyred.
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It says the tissue holders were SHIPPED from India, but no mention of where they were made.
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Good point! Under globalisation components and sub-assemblies of components come from multiple countries, to the final assembly point prior to shipping.
Why would the profitable use of contaminated scrap metal not also wage-arbitraged, outsourced to low-wage countries?
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“No imminent threat” –
handy old phrase
while cruising along
to the profit phase.
Get in line! Wait your turn!
No need to worry –
It’s a controlled burn!
Get out of the water!
Stay back of the tape!
Like lambs to the slaughter
and make no mistake,
sooner or later
to those who will wait
all things will come
when there’s profit to make.
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How did Bed and Bath realize they had a problem with one of their shipments, was it a consumer with a detector?
What else has sneaked by?
I give the store credit that they did alert people once they found out, or were they forced to alert the public?
How did it get contaminated in the first place, wonder if they will ever say?
I won’t be surprised if they start finding more shipments like this. Looks like, they will have to change the acceptable levels again. grrrrr..
There will have to be more USA Made Products. Which means they won’t want Unions and will want to change the child work laws..They are use to cheap labor.
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The answer to your first question is in the story: “The contamination was first discovered in California when two packages bound for Bed, Bath & Beyond stores in Santa Clara and San Jose containing four tissue holders triggered radiation alarms at truck scales, according to a Jan. 6 report posted on the NRC website.”
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Hi aigeezer
Thank you..If it was discovered at the truck scales, then why did they make it to the stores?
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Hi WSP. I didn’t see your post for a long while – sorry.
My current guess is that many deliveries went through undetected and got into the stores, but one eventually tripped an alarm in California, after which the authorities leaped into action (as it were).
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Thank you aigeezer..Looks like it is a good idea to have your own Geiger Counters, to be on the safe side.
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Here is an article from ’09 concerning radioactive particles in consumer products. If there was a problem then it does not bode well for the present.
http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/43577
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Some retard in India lost a radiotherapy source. This is like Goiania all over again. Damn.
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Atomic Tissue Company !
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Putting it in your bathroom is like 2 chest X-rays… Imagine someone putting it on their nightstand.
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or taking a big breath before blowing your nose.wiping your nose or countless other uses where you actually use them….
and so it begins….again
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Got me one of those Inspector Alerts DEtectors – looked at my favorite super sized cheap coffee mug “made in china” I’ve had for nigh 9 years now and decided to give it “the test”. Avg CPMs: 130.
well dip me in sh*t!!! hazardous waste right there in my own cupboard, the cup I hold at least about 1-2 hours daily (I drink a lot of coffee in the a.m.). Handle registers 70 CPM. inside the cup goes as high as 150 on real time count.
Decided to test the rest of them thar mugs “made in china” and sure as it’s jihad time in the world, each one was 2-3-4x ambient CPMs (30-32) and well past “handmade – USA” mugs (40-50 CPM – normal clay rad). EPA alert # is 100 CPMs I’m told?
Happy New Year. Welcome to globalization and no standards, no testing, no looking.
Anyone for ‘hot’ coffee? we are all laughing, right?
http://www.radiationnetwork.com : use it, join it.
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Hi Dan – thanks for that info. Radiation Network at 7:23 pm on 1/13/12 showed “72″ for PA/NY/NJ area (hard to tell exactly where that monitor is.) Winds from Indian Point? Oyster Creek?
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Yes DanSeidel,…I am laughing,…just to keep myself from crying, right? That is so distressing on so many levels!
Thanks for letting us know, friend.
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Radioactive scrap metal has been being used in manufacturing in Mexico for at least 3 decades and sent to other countries, especially the U.S. Sat at a table with metal legs lately? Have metal rebar in your house, office? See this:
So far as we know. Bolding in quote is mine.
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Recycled metal = big bummer, though it could have been a great thing.
ECRR has a 2003 report on recycling of low level radioactive materials like glass and concrete as well as metals (“Criteria for Clearance: Controlling the Release of Solid Materials of Very Low Average Activity for Reuse, Recycling and Disposal”, June, 2003). Europe has this problem too, then. And clearly metal’s not the only risky recycled material.
Yet another reason to want a radiation detector! I guess we just start checking everything, like DanS checking his coffee mug? Seems like the only way, without regulatory protection.
Has anyone here got curious/flush enough to get a handheld isotope identifier like the Berkeley Nucleonics 1703MB? (I’ll ask that in the radiation readings thread, too)
This recycling mess also makes me wonder about the future, maybe we’ll start treasuring metal, glass, etc (plastic?) items produced before a certain date? Probably 3/11/2011, huh. Or maybe sometime much earlier, pre-1944, say.
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http://www.thefreelibrary.com/COBALT-+60+MORE+UNSAFE+THAN+THOUGHT.-a0228856095
COBALT- 60, whose radiation killed a worker at West Delhi’s Mayapuri scrap market recently, may be more harmful than earlier thought.
A research report by a scientist has revealed that radioisotopes such as Cobalt- 60 emit Ultraviolet ( UV) dominant optical rays.
The report shows that metallic sources such as cobalt- 57 and cobalt- 60 emit a ” new class of atomic spectra of solids at room temperature”. The UV emission may, therefore, be contributing to the skin erythema noticed in cancer patients during cobalt- 60 teletherapy treatment.
Erythema is ‘ reddening’ of the skin because of inflammatory or immunologic processes. Irradiation leads to accumulation of lymphocytes in the layers of the skin caused by cell death.
” Cobalt- 60 can be more harmful to a patient exposed to it during cancer treatment. Doctors should use a sheet of black paper between the radiation machine and the patient,” said Dr M. A. Padmanabha Rao, who conducted the research.
Rao is former head of the Radiation Safety Group and deputy director at the Defence Laboratory in Jodhpur. His study is published in the recent issue of the Brazilian Journal of Physics.
In 1997, Rao had first reported the discovery of an atomic phenomenon causing light emission from sources of ionising radiation in the official technical report of the DRDO’s Defence Laboratory.
Dr.M.A.Padmanabha Rao (Member): COBALT- 60 MORE UNSAFE THAN THOUGHT 7/6/2010 11:29 PM
The present article is cited from my research paper “UV dominant optical emission newly detected from radioisotopes and XRF sources” published in Brazilian Journal of Physics,Vol.40,no.1,March 2010.
http://www.sbfisica.org.br/bjp/files/v40_38.pdf.
Incredibly, this single paper accounts to six fundamental physics discoveries. Cobalt-60 serves in treating cancer patients (Radiotherapy) by virtue of its gamma emission. Now, the current study reveals…
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similar global alert 3 years ago:
http://www.danfoss.com/NR/rdonlyres/67329484-35AA-4E3E-922C-0E0B8D64A203/0/ManufacturesdeclarationCobalt60.pdf
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We need a new regulatory agency just for radiation!!!!
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More regulatory agencies because the existing ones work so well?
Count me out (not that I’ll have a choice).
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I couldn’t agree more. I guess we have to depend on ourselves then. Get a geiger!
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Hi many moons & aigeezer
Sorry I just saw your postings..I agree with you both. We need a new regulatory agency just for radiation, and the existing ones aren’t working that well.
We need regulatory agency just for radiation. We cannot count on corporations to check for radiation.
I also agree that these agencies have to be handled differently where corruption can’t take place.
Corporations would love for all the agencies to dismantle. I don’t think they can police themselves.
Out of these agencies we have had whistle blowers come forth. Without agencies we wouldn’t know anything. I agree we need to know more and the truth.
I do think changes are needed with these agencies, the existing ones are getting way to friendly with Corporate.
We just need these agencies to get better at doing their job. Not to dismantle them, allowing then the Corporations have more of a free range.
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