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Radioactive Recyclables
Arthur Stamoulis
 It's
hard to believe, but recycling isn't always a good thing.
Consider the case of the East Tennessee Industrial Park. It's home
to millions of tons of old steel, machinery and concrete that are
just collecting dust. Recycling that junk seems like the perfect option,
until you realize that the East Tennessee Industrial Park sits on
the site of the former Oak Ridge nuclear weapons facility, and that
much of its scrap materials are radioactive.
According to a recent Mother Jones article, the Department
of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are recommending that
"slightly radioactive" materials from this facility, and
from other nuclear weapons and nuclear power facilities throughout
the country, be treated as ordinary scrap. The government argues that
most of these materials are safe, and that there is no problem recycling
them into medical tools, tricycles, jewelry, building supplies and
other everyday items without any sort of warning labels.
Currently, most radioactive scrap is kept on-site until it can
be shipped to specially-licensed, highly-secure landfills. The
government only recycled materials from nuclear sites on a case-by-case
basis. The new policy they are proposing would institute an acceptable
level of radioactivity, below which any scrap could be recycled
without review.
Opponents of this new policy say the government is simply changing
the definition of "safe" for the sake of convenience,
a move that could put public health in jeopardy. One such opponent,
the DC group Public Citizen, argues, "Since there is no safe
level of ionizing radiation, nuclear power, weapons and mining
wastes should not be forced on an unknowing, unconsenting public."
They urge the government to adopt the "precautionary principle"
when dealing with radioactive waste, a concept that says easily
avoidable risks to public health should be minimized.
For more information, visit:
The
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Proposal
The Department
of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations
Public
Citizen's Radioactive Materials FAQ
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