Nuclear waste piling up at U.S. hospitals

[Javaman]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26891309/

No long-term disposal plan in place for millions of radioactive devices

BARNWELL, S.C. - 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.

[izquierdista]

1. Reminds me of graduate school

I had an office across the hall from a Nobel Prize winning radiochemist. When he passed away, his lab had to be cleaned out and there were all sorts of weird isotopes in all sorts of containers, some with shielding, some without. All most of it was good for was a trip to Barnwell.

This is the epitome in the NIMBY phenomenon. Since NOBODY wants it and SOMEBODY needs to do something about it, the government needs to take the waste and put it in a secure disposal place (deep underground in a stable geologic formation comes to mind). However, getting ANYBODY to agree to take the first step seems to be an impossible task.

[quidam56]

2. US HOSPITALS ARE ALSO LOADED WITH M.R.S.A

This is quite acceptable and nothing to be alarmed about. MRSA ( Methycillian-resistant Staphylococcus Aurea's ) killed more American's than AIDS last year, but you sure don't hear anyone with authority doing anything about it ! This is 'acceptable standards of health care' in East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. www.wisecountyissues.com