The overwhelming scientific consensus is that any amount of radiation – no matter how small – can cause cancer and other serious health effects.
(Current safety standards are based on the ridiculous assumption that everyone exposed is a healthy man in his 20s – and that radioactive particles ingested into the body cause no more damage than radiation hitting the outside of the body. In the real world, however, even low doses of radiation can cause cancer. Moreover, small particles of radiation – called “internal emitters” – which get inside the body are much more dangerous than general exposures to radiation. See this and this. And radiation affects small children much more than full-grown adults.)
But the Department of Energy – the agency which is responsible for the design, testing and production of all U.S. nuclear weapons, promotes nuclear energy as one of its core functions, which has been covering up nuclear accidents for decades, and has used mutant lines of human cells to promote voodoo, anti-scientific arguments – proposes letting radiation into our silverware.
Counterpunch notes:
Even the deregulation-happy Wall St. Journal sounded shocked: “The Department of Energy is proposing to allow the sale of tons of scrap metal from government nuclear sites — an attempt to reduce waste that critics say could lead to radiation-tainted belt buckles, surgical implants and other consumer products.”
Having failed in the ‘80s and ‘90s to free the nuclear bomb factories and national laboratories of millions of tons of their radioactively contaminated scrap and nickel, the DOE is trying again. Its latest proposal is moving ahead without even an Environmental Impact Statement. Those messy EISs involve public hearings, so you can imagine the DOE’s reluctance to face the public over adding yet more radiation to the doses we’re already accumulating.
Congressman Markey writes:
A Department of Energy proposal to allow up to 14,000 metric tons of its radioactive scrap metal to be recycled into consumer products was called into question today by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) due to concerns over public health. In a letter sent to DOE head Steven Chu, Rep. Markey expressed “grave concerns” over the potential of these metals becoming jewelry, cutlery, or other consumer products that could exceed healthy doses of radiation without any knowledge by the consumer. DOE made the proposal to rescind its earlier moratorium on radioactive scrap metal recycling in December, 2012.
The proposal follows an incident from 2012 involving Bed, Bath & Beyond stores in America recalling tissue holders made in India that were contaminated with the radio-isotope cobalt-60. Those products were shipped to 200 stores in 20 states. In response to that incident, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesperson advised members of the public to return the products even though the amount of contamination was not considered to be a health risk.
This is not the first time this has happened.
As the Progressive reported in 1998, radioactive scrap metal was ending up in everything from silverware to frying pans and belt buckles:
The Department of Energy has a problem: what to do with millions of tons of radioactive material. So the DOE has come up with an ingenious plan to dispose of its troublesome tons of nickel, copper, steel and aluminum. It wants to let scrap companies collect the metal, try to take the radioactivity out, and sell the metal to foundries, which would in turn sell it to manufacturers who could use it for everyday household products: pots, pans, forks, spoons, even your eyeglasses.
You may not know this, but the government already permits some companies under special licenses, to buy, reprocess and sell radioactive metal: 7,500 tons in 1996, by one industry estimate. But the amount of this reprocessing could increase drastically if the DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission … and the burgeoning radioactive metal processing industry get their way.
They are pressing for a new, lax standard that would do away with special permits and allow companies to buy and resell millions of tons of low-level radioactive metal.
***
The standard the companies seek could cause nearly 100,000 cancer fatalities in the United States, by the NRC’s own estimate.
(A couple of years later, Congressman Markey successfully banned most radioactive scrap … but now DOE is trying to bring it back.)
Radioactive scrap is a global problem. As Bloomberg reported last year:
“The major risk we face in our industry is radiation,” said Paul de Bruin, radiation-safety chief for Jewometaal Stainless Processing, one of the world’s biggest stainless-steel scrap yards. “You can talk about security all you want, but I’ve found weapons-grade uranium in scrap. Where was the security?”
More than 120 shipments of contaminated goods, including cutlery, buckles and work tools such as hammers and screwdrivers, were denied U.S. entry between 2003 and 2008 after customs and the Department of Homeland Security boosted radiation monitoring at borders.
The department declined to provide updated figures or comment on how the metal tissue boxes at Bed, Bath & Beyond, tainted with cobalt-60 used in medical instruments to diagnose and treat cancer, evaded detection.
***
“The general public basically isn’t aware that they’re living in a radioactive world,” according to Ross Bartley, technical director for the recycling bureau, who said the contamination has led to lost sales. “Those tissue boxes are problematic because they’re radioactive and they had to be put in radioactive disposal.”
Abandoned medical scanners, food-processing devices and mining equipment containing radioactive metals such as cesium-137 and cobalt-60 are picked up by scrap collectors, sold to recyclers and melted down by foundries, the IAEA says.
Dangerous scrap comes from derelict hospitals and military bases, as well as defunct government agencies that have lost tools with radioactive elements.
Chronic exposure to low doses of radiation can lead to cataracts, cancer and birth defects, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A 2005 study of more than 6,000 Taiwanese who lived in apartments built with radioactive reinforcing steel from 1983 to 2005 showed a statistically significant increase in leukemia and breast cancer.
***
India and China were the top sources of radioactive goods shipped to the U.S. through 2008, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Bartley, a metallurgist who has tracked radioactive contamination since the early 1990s, said there’s no evidence the situation has improved.
***
Two years after an Indian scrap-metal worker died from radiation exposure, the world’s second-most populous country hasn’t installed alarms, the Ministry of Shipping said in December.
***
“The same thing could easily happen again tomorrow,” said Deepak Jain, 65, who owns the yard where the worker died. “We have no protection. The government promised a lot, but has delivered absolutely nothing.”
Indeed, we are being bombarded with low-level radiation from all sides:
- Above-ground nuclear tests created “background” levels of radioactive cesium and iodine for the first time
- Countries dump everything from radiation from nuclear meltdowns to radioactive submarines in the ocean
- In Japan, radioactive crops are being mixed into non-irradiated foods
- The U.S. apparently signed a pact with Japan agreeing that the U.S. will continue buying seafood from Japan, despite that food is not being tested for radioactive materials
- Much of our food is now intentionally irradiated
(The government would never treat us as guinea pigs ... would it?)
What can we do? Counterpunch notes:
You can tell the DOE to continue to keep its radioactive metal out of the commercial metal supply, commerce, and our personal items. You can demand a full environmental impact statement. Comment deadline is Feb. 9, 2013. Email to: scrap_PEAcomments@hq.doe.gov (with an underscore after “scrap_”). Snail mail to: Jane Summerson / DOE NNSA / PO Box 5400, Bldg. 401K. AFB East / Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185



The motion carries.
Next order of business...
"Fisker Automotive Inc., the struggling maker of battery-powered sports cars, is in talks with several potential bidders as it accelerates a search for buyers and investors so it can keep operating, according to people familiar with the discussions…
A sale of the company is the most likely path, the people said, but it is possible Fisker could remain independent if it finds a partner or investor, the people said. The company is seeking investors even in the case of a sale to make the company more attractive to potential buyers, they said.
Much of the interest in Fisker is coming from China and elsewhere in Asia, where company executives believe there is stronger interest in Fisker’s electric-car technology, the people said. Fisker is also talking to companies in other regions, including the U.S., they said…
Among potential investors, Fisker has been in talks with Chinese-owned auto-parts manufacturer Wanxiang America Corp., one of the people familiar with the discussions said."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323375204578267974057913146.html
Oh, thats just fucking lovely...does Biden and Delaware union members know about this? I seem to recall the bankrupt A123 company (Fiskers battery maker) sold off to Wanxiang as well.
Somebody please get Obama & Bidens mind off of "state/corporate business ventures" and onto something completely irrelevant...like the nations debt & deficits.
Thanks.
All future Nobel Prize winners come please accept their reward..
What is the point of eco-anything, if we just put the cancer causing stuff directly into our mouths?
You'd be tempted to say that TPTB don't care from open air nuclear tests straight through to Fukushima.
Global warming? Fuck you.
I'm just gonna throw this out there...cause, ya know, I can be a dick sometimes...lol.
Global Warming Downgraded
"I am James Lovelock, scientist and author, known as the originator of Gaia theory, a view of the Earth that sees it as a self-regulating entity that keeps the surface environment always fit for life… I am an environmentalist and founder member of the Greens but I bow my head in shame at the thought that our original good intentions should have been so misunderstood and misapplied.
We never intended a fundamentalist Green movement that rejected all energy sources other than renewable, nor did we expect the Greens to cast aside our priceless ecological heritage because of their failure to understand that the needs of the Earth are not separable from human needs. We need take care that the spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island, monuments of a failed civilisation. –James Lovelock, 12 December 2012"
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/52681
A downgrade indeed, plus a real bummer to my habit of masturbating to the hockystick chart. Regardless, you may find an interesting tale told over at Suspicious Observers
Yes.........................
A new Maunder Minimum foreshadowed....
That's a really scary, kids.
Global Warming / Climate Change = whipped up public mass hysteria (the "We'll all fry'n'die" hypothesis)
Mass "Belief" = Govt. "Must DO Something" = easy research funding
Easy research funding = poor quality research submissions get funding (at the expense of other research)
Easy research funding = "Get Rich / Famous Quick" mentality in applicants = charlatanism rather than good science
IPCC = restricts publications to data supporting "their" view. Contrary papers are sidelined, and skeptics suppressed.
Notice that all the Climate Activists have no problem in their jetting all over the globe (Business Class at the very least), attending very costly conferences (which always seem to be in the more upscale resorts / locales), whilst berating us lesser beings for our "Carbon Footprint", and conditioning us to accept a far lower standard of living (however their standard of living - and theirs is a very high one - is beyond question).
You want an excellent example of public theft in return for NIL benefit - I present Professor Tim Flannery - $180,000 a year for 3 days a week lobbying for the Aussie Government - to get the public to swallow Gillard's Carbon Tax.
please don't bring up australia, i wanted to get to there before i died. i heard there were good jobs if you could get them, in mining towns.
Learn how to weld. I did. I recommend TIG welding experience to the level of x-ray inspection certification. Any monkey can MIG weld (yours truly included). Handy when working on cars, like I do. Probably even more handy when you are looking for an easily explainable market skill to get you into the country of your choice.
I would like to visit Australia, too. I wanna meet Crockodile Dundee.
Pity he's dead..
Maybe he can meet Dundee Crocodile instead, then :)
at least my gods have human faces. every day a hypocrisy, as they stare endlessly.
Maybe blender the stuff and use it for lower GI enema exams.
I'm of the opinion that this will mark a major change in athletics. If you don't win the gold medal you'll be as good as dead with the silver medal.
Doing the same with the new light bulbs. The light bulbs have small amounts of mercury in them. If disposed of properly there is likely no problem. Throw them in the garbage like most will do and the mercury will end up in the ground water and likely in your body.
Thanks GE you bring all good things to light.
PS. The radioactive silver sounds like a great way to keep you from hoarding the pm.
Engh, no worse that a can of tuna fish these days. Now you get radioactive mercury from the Pacific......
The Japanese government are going to dump trillions of becquerels of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, containing large amounts of uranium and plutonium:
http://enenews.com/tepco-planning-dump-water-fukushima-plant-pacific-ocean
They've been doing it for almost two years now, nice of them to let us know.
but how can you beat the price? a tin of anchovies at the grocery4less was only a buck last time i went in, that's pretty fuckin cheap.
No worse?
So that makes it OK?
Aaragh!
Yes.
Don't you see, its ALL RELATIVE now!...a sea of tortured gray with no defining features of morality, ethics, virtue or character!
Freedom at last! ;-)
I just stopped eating lead paint chips a few months ago. Now I gotta deal with RADIOACTIVE utensils? Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
How am I going to live without kissing my Glocks goodnight?
But they're greeeeeeen! ;-)
Nobody disposes of those light bulbs safely.
Jesus H Fucking Christ on a Crutch.
Ask one of your neighbors.
They drop a bulb.
Do they don a hazmat suit and go through the proper procedures or phone the EMS/Fire dept?
No.
They throw the shit in the garbage.
In another 20 dozen years then the New They will have New Regulations to Clean Up the Garbage Dumps.
For which the Peasantry shall Pay.
Fucking Ridiculous.
Yeppers...most "enlightened" people were bangin on this simple fact (disposal) when they first came out.
We were shouted down as heretics, unbelievers in the new Church of Gaia.
Now, apparently, the curly worm has turned ;-)
when everyone has "energetic" belt buckles and zippers, everyone will necessarily be detained at screening sites (airports, bus stations, interstate checkpoints at state lines and rest stops) and their property civilly forfeited.
bullish!
Sad state of affairs ain't it?
One "crisis" after another to keep everyones mind off the real crisis, to distract us from the non-crisis offered up as the answer to the last crisis brought to us by the very same people who brought us, the first crisis.
I think ;-)
George, you should be more worried about the readiation they are chemtrailing, worldwide... and go ahead and try to understand why, the truth is not something that most will allow themselves even to consider.
They're spraying aluminum. The plutonium'll thin us out faster.
Quite a bit of radiation has been dumped over the last few years... And lest we forget, there is a precedent for this. Does anyone really believe that those running the show didn't understand that atmospheric atomic bomb tests would spread radiation over large parts of the world...