Are our tractors going to start glowing?

[milkman]

I've got a question that has been bugging me for quite some time and I can't find anyone that knows the answer, so here goes. If metal that is radioactive is cutup and scrapped and melted down and recycled, will the parts made out of it still be radioactive? If it's not, how does it get cleaned up and how do they dispose off the radioactivity? Well that's two questions.

 

[BobRip]

I've got a question that has been bugging me for quite some time and I can't find anyone that knows the answer, so here goes. If metal that is radioactive is cutup and scrapped and melted down and recycled, will the parts made out of it still be radioactive? If it's not, how does it get cleaned up and how do they dispose off the radioactivity? Well that's two questions.

Yes it's still radioactive. Typically you can wash a lot of the radioactivity off of metal (it's from loose particles). Of course now the water you wahsed it with is contaminated. Basically to get rid of it you bury it and wait for the radioactivity to decay.

 

[BamaRob]

From a United States steel producer's perspective...

All of our scrap is scanned for radio active material at multiple points in the process. You DO NOT want to melt radio active scrap. A very small amount of contaminated scrap can ruin a whole bunch of material and equipment, not to mention the possibility of releasing some nasty stuff in the atmosphere (not very likely in our process, but possible).

Of course, this is a US based company that has an excellent environmental and safety policy and record. Tractors built from steel produced in countries where the environmental standards aren't on the same level (or are nonexistent) may very well start glowing.

BR

 

[texbaylea]

I don't know how it is done now but back in the 50's and 60's the steel industry used a form of radioactive sensing to determine the wear on the lining of the blast furnaces. The result was that all steel contained low level radioactivity.

The result was that if you needed a well shielded "cave" for low level radiation measurements you had to find scrap armor plate from old naval vessels. Those built before the start of WWII.

If there is radioactivity in the scrap that is used in producing more steel then that radioactivity is simply diluted in the new batch but it is not gone.

Radioactivity is all around us naturally - you can not get away from it. Since I moved out of that field of work a few decades ago I have not kept up but back then there were natural gas pipeline compressor station that had general radiation levels higher than allowed at a nuclear reactor from the radioactivity naturally occuring with the natural gas. There were gas fired generating stations releasing higher levels of radioactivity than would be allowed a nuclear generator.

At the risk of starting another flame war, it has been hypothesized that the earth's naturally occuring radiation background is one of the drivers of mutations that feed the evolution of the species.

Vernon

 

[midlf]

Lots of things have more radiation than is allowed in a nuke plant. At the plant I spent a short time at, in the spring of the year, when the farmers where plowing (see, it is tractor related), if you wore polyester pants you would not get out of the plant with them. The polyester would attract naturally occurring soil radon gas being released by the plowing and you would fail the rad scan on leaving the plant, they didn't do an incoming scan. You ended up going home with tyvek pants and your polyester pants would be on their way to Barnwell SC.

I have an old radium dial watch I was temped to wear, but the nukkies don't have any sense of humor and I didn't want to lose the watch or my employment.

 

[mjarrels]

I've got one thats "orange"... does that count?

mark

 

[milkman]

That's some interesting info, but it's making more questions, if "we're" not melting it down, then will the ports have to start scanning all the incoming stuff for radiation, because it's getting recycled into something. Would make for some interesting sales brocures though, "Our compacts tractors have the lowest radiation content of any compact in it's class". Maybe they'll just make cargo ships out of it.

 

[Jstpssng]

That's some interesting info, but it's making more questions, if "we're" not melting it down, then will the ports have to start scanning all the incoming stuff for radiation, because it's getting recycled into something. Would make for some interesting sales brocures though, "Our compacts tractors have the lowest radiation content of any compact in it's class". Maybe they'll just make cargo ships out of it.

That's a can of worms you don't want to open in today's global economy.
If free trade was real instead of just a concept, everyone would abide by the same rules and regulations.

 

[milkman]

That's a can of worms you don't want to open in today's global economy.
If free trade was real instead of just a concept, everyone would abide by the same rules and regulations.

The can is open and the worms are out and the rules and regs aren't followed, that is exactly the reason that I have the questions that I do, maybe we need personal geiger counters?

 

[DUMBDOG]

If your tractor glowed, it would be easier to find at night.