Scripps Howard News Service leads a story about radioactive materials ending up in Tennessee's recycling system with an item about Memphis.
Americium-241, which the EPA says can pose significant health risks, is commonly found in smoke detectors, and it probably slipped through the cracks and was blended with other scrap.
When a metal recycler north of Memphis, Tenn., inadvertently mixed radioactive material into a new batch of metal in 1997, employees at the facility didn't know about it for three days, state documents show.The case was one of about 880 from Tennessee that are contained in a national database of nuclear-materials events, most of which occurred since 1990.
Contained in a piece of metal scrap, the radioactive isotope Americium-241 slipped into White Salvage's scrap-metal supply at its Ripley, Tenn., plant, blending into a new batch of aluminum. The contamination was not discovered until a shipment of the newly made material reached Memphis metal broker Southern Tin three days later.
Americium-241, which the EPA says can pose significant health risks, is commonly found in smoke detectors, and it probably slipped through the cracks and was blended with other scrap.
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