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Identifying Radioactive Scrap

This information may help you in identifying radioactive materials in the recycling environment. Should you find any scrap material that contains radioactive materials or that you think might possibly be radioactive

DO NOT TOUCH IT OR COME TOO CLOSE TO IT!

EVACUATE THE AREA IMMEDIATELY AND KEEP PEOPLE AWAY.

NOTIFY YOUR MANAGER OR SUPERVISOR ASAP.

Sources of Radioactive scrap may include:

• Aviation Industries
• Medical/Hospital Equipment
• Oil and Gas Production facilities (In the oil and gas industry radium-226 and lead-210 are deposited as scale in pipes and equipment. If the scale has an activity of 30,000 Bq/kg it is 'contaminated' (Victorian regulations)).
• Highway/Building Construction companies (Building materials can contain elevated levels of radionuclides including radium-226, thorium-232 and potassium-40)
• Maritime Dockyard
• Demolition sites
• Telecommunication equipments
• Military/Defence Facilities
• Exporters/Importers of scrap
• Industrial warehouse
• Storage Tanks etc.

Things to look for include:

• Any object with a lifting eye
• Some kind of smoke detector
• Pipe scale
• C-shape objects
• Round or dome-shape objects
• Other objects that are usually heavy for their size
• Glow-in-the-dark dials
• Key words(radioactive, any word that ends in –ium  (Francium, Uranium, Thorium, Plutonium, Radium, Neptunium), exposure device”, curie, Becquerel)
• Most coal contains uranium and thorium, as well as potassium-40, lead-210, and radium-226.