Nuclear waste piles up at hospitals

[babylonsister]

Nuclear waste piles up at hospitals

By SEANNA ADCOX
Associated Press Writer


BARNWELL, S.C. (AP) -- Tubes, capsules and pellets of used radioactive material are piling up in the basements and locked closets of hospitals and research installations around the country, stoking fears they could get lost or, worse, stolen by terrorists and turned into dirty bombs.

For years, truckloads of low-level nuclear waste from most of the U.S. were taken to a rural South Carolina landfill. There, items such as the rice-size radioactive seeds for treating cancer and pencil-thin nuclear tubes used in industrial gauges were sealed in concrete and buried.

But a South Carolina law that took effect July 1 ended nearly all disposal of radioactive material at the landfill, leaving 36 states with no place to throw out some of the stuff. So labs, universities, hospitals and manufacturers are storing more and more of it on their own property.

"Instead of safely secured in one place, it's stored in thousands of places in urban locations all over the United States," said Rick Jacobi, a nuclear waste consultant and former head of a Texas agency that unsuccessfully tried to create a disposal site for that state.

State and federal authorities say the waste is being monitored, but they acknowledge that it is difficult to track and inspected as little as once every five years. Government documents and dozens of Associated Press interviews with nuclear waste generators, experts, watchdogs and officials show that thousands of these small radioactive items have already been lost, and that worries are growing.

more...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NUCLEAR_TRASH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. I call scare-mongering.

This shit's highly, highly, highly regulated.

[babylonsister]

2. Then explain this:

State and federal authorities say the waste is being monitored, but they acknowledge that it is difficult to track and inspected as little as once every five years. Government documents and dozens of Associated Press interviews with nuclear waste generators, experts, watchdogs and officials show that thousands of these small radioactive items have already been lost, and that worries are growing.

[spoony]

4. So the scary terrorists are going to use rice-sized pellets

in the dirty bombs we've been promised will make all our cities barren glowing deserts?

Forgive me if the dirty bomb I'm focused on right now is located on Wall Street.

[babylonsister]

6. Fine. Don't read it then or bury your head. Doesn't mean it's not

happening.

Isn't this the place to share articles and information?

[sudopod]

3. When in danger, when in doubt

run in circles, scream and shout.

[undergroundpanther]

5. The world is contaminated

by our"way of life" and it is slowly killing us.
Might as well face the reality of what humanity has done to ourselves and all life here.Civilization and profit makes for planetary suicide/murder via greed and complacency.That's what you get when you trust con men and psychopaths to run societies.