SCRAP METAL PLAN PROVES RADIOACTIVE

[Oscar]

SCRAP METAL PLAN PROVES RADIOACTIVE

----- Original Message -----
From: Elaine Hughes

To: SK Premier Wall ; ROOT, John-UofS ; Resurgence/Ecologist Newsletter ; Greenpeace ; Council of Canadians ; Committee for Future Generations ; Breitkreuz, G. MP-Ottawa

Cc: Trudeau.J@parl.gc.ca ; SK Watershed Auth. ; Sierra Club - Can. ; Safe Drinking Water Foundation ; Safe And Green Energy ; RAE, Bob. Lib. Leader ; Ralph Goodale, Liberal.ca ; MULCAIR, T. NDP Leader ; MAY, E. GPC Leader ; Coalition for a Clean Green SK ; Cdn. Drs. for Medicare ; A Healthy Society-Dr.Meili ; Breitkreuz, G. Yktn-Mel.

Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 10:56 AM

Subject: MUST READ: SCRAP METAL PLAN PROVES RADIOACTIVE

Saskatchewan's Premier Wall and his friends at Cameco can't dig it out of the ground fast enough - to share it with the rest of the world!

. . . . in this 'enlightened' civilization - politicians and the 'experts' still 'playing' with this deadly material !

Elaine Hughes
Archerwill, Saskatchewan

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SCRAP METAL PLAN PROVES RADIOACTIVE

http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424127887323783704578246051395941028.html

----- Original Message -----
From: Gordon Edwards
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 12:26 AM
Subject: Wall Street Journal: SCRAP METAL PLAN PROVES RADIOACTIVE

Background:

Once upon a time, people were told that nuclear power is "clean". Having been taught in school that Science is Truth and Scientists are therefore to be trusted, people generally believed what they were told.

In those days, the population and their elected representatives were assured that nuclear waste would be safely sequestered from the environment of living things. They were reassured. Everything was well in hand.

That was then. This is now.

We are now deep into the Age of Nuclear Waste. The nuclear industry is bending every rule it can to be allowed to disperse huge volumes of its radioactive waste byproducts into the environment (e.g. landfills) or into consumer goods (e.g. scrap metal).

Nuclear advocates call it "recycling of radioactively contaminated materials", but this is a misnomer designed to deceive. For nobody -- absolutely nobody -- wants radioactively contaminated materials. There is no market, for example, for radioactively contaminated scrap metal.

None whatsoever.

These schemers are not "recycling" contaminated material at all; what they are doing (or wanting to do) is systematically contaminating recycled material!

They are blending highly toxic radioactive poisons -- unwanted waste byproducts that are created in the bowels of nuclear reactors and do not otherwise exist in nature -- into what is otherwise wholesome, environmentally friendly products.

The result is that every person on earth may soon end up with small amounts of nuclear reactor waste in most household products: knives, forks, zippers, pins, buckles, baby cribs -- you name it. And this systematic contamination would not be due to some nuclear disaster such as the Fukushima catastrophe, but due to a deliberate policy on the part of government decision-makers.

The baffling comparisons that are made by the nuclear polluters are bogus. They talk about radiation exposures from transcontinental flights, or exposures from medical x-rays -- but such exposures do not leave a deposit of long-lived radioactive material in the environment.

Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years. Therefore, if it is blended into our metal supply, it will remain in the environment for a period of time that far exceeds the span of recorded human history, exposing present and future generations to an extraordinary toxic radioactive material that is only created as a waste byproduct from nuclear reactors.

Once disseminated into the environment it can never be removed again.

Now is the time for people in large numbers to say "No!" to this irresponsible plan.

Gordon Edwards.
[ See http://www.ccnr.org/essay_radwaste_recycling.pdf ]

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Scrap-Metal Plan Proves Radioactive

http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424127887323783704578246051395941028.html

By JOHN R. EMSHWILLER, Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/b3tugyp

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.

The department, in a document released last month, said the recycling proposal is in line with its policy of "reusing materials whenever possible." The approximately 14,000 tons of metal under review for possible initial release is only a fraction of the tens of millions of tons of metal recycled annually, it said.

Smaller amounts could be eligible for release in future years. Selling the metals could bring in $10 million to $40 million a year, the DOE estimates. While the metal would come from "radiological areas" such as research laboratories and nuclear-weapons-related facilities, any contamination would be so low that a member of the public would be exposed to a "negligible individual dose" of additional radiation, the DOE said. The allowable annual radiation dose to an individual from a given shipment of the scrap metal would be half the estimated amount of radiation a person gets flying cross-country, or even less, the document said.

Some industry and environmental groups aren't satisfied by the government's assurances.

"We are concerned about what could happen in the marketplace if you have to worry about radioactive material possibly being in your eyeglass frames," said Thomas Danjczek, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, a trade group whose members use recycled metals. "Why is the government trying to hurt the image of American products?"

It is difficult and expensive to prevent the commingling of recycled metals. Metal processing facilities already face contamination problems when they inadvertently accept medical devices and other radioactive products, Mr. Danjczek said. Cleanup from such incidents can cost a recycling plant as much as $15 million, he added.

Some critics argue the DOE's proposed exposure standards are too high and that information provided in its 50-page document explaining the proposal is even more worrisome.

Higher exposures could occur if contaminated metal is made into items such as belt buckles or hip-replacement joints, said Daniel Hirsch, a lecturer on nuclear policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and critic of the government's proposal.

Such exposures would further increase a person's cancer risk, he said.

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