Radioactive contaminated metal, if used to manufacture household goods, could pose a potential health problem to unsuspecting consumers: International Atomic Energy Agency
Radioactive materials or contaminated devices are entering into the booming scraps recycling chain, posing a grave health hazard, according to the annual data on illicit trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive material released by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an autonomous organisation within the United Nations system.
The latest data has been extracted from the IAEA Incident and Trafficking Database (ITDB), where some 143 member states and international agencies report incidents of illicit trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive material under or out of regulatory control. This is part of the IAEA’s Nuclear Security Plan.
IAEA doesn’t disclose the specific incident to the public and shares only the broad trends of the annual reporting by the participating members. The latest statement carried data reported till December 31, 2022.
For this database, participating members report three groups of incidents. According to IAEA, Group I includes incidents “that are, or are likely to be, connected with trafficking or malicious use”; Group II covers “incidents of undetermined intent”; and Group III accounts for “incidents that are not, or are unlikely to be, connected with trafficking or malicious use”.
Group III primarily includes “various types of material recovery, such as discovery of uncontrolled sources, detection of materials disposed of in an unauthorized way and detection of inadvertent unauthorized possession or shipment of nuclear or other radioactive material, including radioactively contaminated material”.
According to the latest dataset of IAEA, this group majorly covers incidents of unauthorised disposal of radioactive sources slipping into scrap metal or waste recycling industries, scrap metals contaminated with radioactive materials shipped across international borders and detection of radioactive sources in various goods.
Some 130 such cases were reported in 2022, according to IAEA. “The annual number of reported incidents of this kind over the last decade has averaged at around 131 incidents per year,” according to the IAEA dataset. It means detection rate of such incidents continues at historic average rate.
“The occurrence of such incidents indicates deficiencies in the systems to control, secure and properly dispose of radioactive material,” said the UN agency in the note released along with the dataset. From 2003 to 2005, there was a spike in reported cases of such incidents. IAEA attributes this to the increase in radiation monitoring systems at national borders and scrap metal facilities.
The surmise that radioactive-laced waste products — including vehicles like ships — is being increasingly recycled without taking care of the hazard gains credence from the fact that during 1993-2022, more than half of incidents reported under this group were not from radioactive sources. Only 10 per cent of all such incidents involved enriched uranium, plutonium and plutonium-beryllium neutron sources. Even for this, many incidents involved scrap metals with high enriched uranium landing up in scrapyards.
“In recent years, a growing number of incidents involved detections at metal recycling chains and the detection of manufactured goods contaminated with radioactive material. This indicates a persistent problem for some countries in securing and detecting the unauthorised disposal of radioactive sources,” said IAEA.
The most common source of such contamination is the feed material (in most cases, metal) from which the product had been manufactured, it further clarified.
The threat to general public health grows when the radioactive-laced scraps are recycled into other products for uses. “Much feed material is often obtained from the metal recycling industry and, in the process of being melted down, can become contaminated with material from an undetected radioactive source such as cobalt-60,” said IAEA.
“The resulting contaminated metal, if used to manufacture household goods, could pose a potential health problem to unsuspecting consumers,” IAEA warned.
In all the groups of incidents, the IAEA reported 146 incidents in 2022, which is an increase of nearly 38 per cent over the 2021 figure. Since 1993, the year of setting up this reporting mechanism, a total of 4,075 cases have been reported.
Incidents under the Group III account for the maximum share — 2,695 incidents out of the total of 4,075. Under Group I, there were 344 cases and under Group II, 1,036 cases.
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