The problem is plain to see-and so may be part of the solution.The problem is that there's a lot of radioactive material that either has entered the scrap stream or potentially could get mixed in with otherwise usable scrap metal. In the past 20 years, there have been roughly 4,000 occurrences in the United States in which radioactive material ended up somewhere other than where it was supposed to be, notes Mike Mattia, ISRI's director of risk management. And those are just the reported occurrences. The total amount of misplaced radioactive material could be as much as 10 times more (though it should be noted that 70 percent of the 4,000 occurrences involved naturally occurring radioactive material as opposed to licensed radioactive sources).
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