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We won't go poking through waste disposal sites for no good reason. And yet earlier today a discussion on reddit sent me once again to the Goiânia incident, in

We won't go poking through waste disposal sites for no good reason. And yet earlier today a discussion on reddit sent me once again to the Goiânia incident, in which that was precisely what happened: an abandoned medical facility was raided for scrap, which happened to include a cesium radiotherapy source. 4 people dead, hundreds of others exposed, expensive cleanup operation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

vilhelm_s 9y ago
And, to tie back to the original article, accidents like this one prompted the creation of a new warning symbol for enclosed radiation sources, which is designed to to rely of people being able to read any particular language or being familiar with the "radiation" trefoil. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/new-symbol-launched-warn-public-about-radiation-dangers-0 https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/new-symbol-launched-war...
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
  The assumption that is made however is that whoever approaches a radioactive source will be able to understand the new sign. Another assumption is that this person will believe the sign- for instance, Egyptian Pharaohs went to great lengths to ward people off their buried treasures but their tombs were robbed anyway, by grave robbers who simply figured out it was all to keep them away from the goods. This concern was big in the mind of Gregory Benford and his team who designed the thorn fields etc- that a sign telling you to keep off may just be read as "here be treasure". Finally, the dearth of knowledge among the majority of the population on nuclear physics should not be underestimated. In the Goiania accident, and other similar cases, people realised that the radioactive sources they had found were important and potentially valuable, because they exhibited uncommon properties, like glowing in the dark or emitting heat (in Lia, Georgia, a 90Sr source with an activity of 1295 TBq was used as a heater by folks gathering wood in the forest). So they kept those sources, putting them in pockets and taking them home, to show their families and then probably looking for a way to cash in on them, until they were taken to hospital with strange illnesses. These actually seem to be pretty clear patterns of human activity and they don't seem to be deterred by simple signage, which is often present on medical equipment etc.
  - vilhelm_s 9y ago
    Sure, but in Goiania (and in the similar accident in Samut Prakan), the people involved didn't disregard any warnings, it just didn't occur to them at all that the source might be dangerous. This also led to a delayed response, because people were getting sick but had no idea what might be causing it it. Putting an extra red sticker on the dangerous goods will not in itself keep spent nuclear reactor fuel safe for 10,000 years, but it's at least a good start. :)
mseebach 9y ago
Signage for a waste disposal site presumes a waste disposal site. If you’re recklessly leaving radioactive material around in an abandoned hospital, thinking about signage is a rather marginal improvement.
cr0sh 9y ago
The really dumb thing - it was all preventable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Hospital_abandonment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Hospital... "On September 11, 1986, the Court of Goiás stated it had knowledge of the abandoned radioactive material in the building. Four months before the theft, on May 4, 1987, Saura Taniguti, then director of Ipasgo, the institute of insurance for civil servants, used police force to prevent one of the owners of IGR, Carlos Figueiredo Bezerril, from removing the objects that were left behind. Figueiredo then warned the president of Ipasgo, Lício Teixeira Borges, that he should take responsibility "for what would happen with the caesium bomb" Apparently - the court posted a guard at the site, but it wouldn't allow the removal of any of the contents of the facility. The owners even "wrote several letters to the National Nuclear Energy Commission, warning them about the danger of keeping a teletherapy unit at an abandoned site". Then guess who got screwed - the very owners who tried and tried to warn about this deadly problem! From wikipedia: "In light of the deaths caused, the three doctors who had owned and run IGR were charged with criminal negligence. Because the accidents occurred before the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and because the substance was acquired by the clinic and not by the individual owners, the court could not declare the owners of IGR liable. One of the medical doctors owning IGR and the clinic's physicist were ordered to pay R$100,000 for the derelict condition of the building." While sure, they weren't found liable - that was probably small consolation.

vilhelm_s 9y ago

And, to tie back to the original article, accidents like this one prompted the creation of a new warning symbol for enclosed radiation sources, which is designed to to rely of people being able to read any particular language or being familiar with the "radiation" trefoil. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/new-symbol-launched-warn-public-about-radiation-dangers-0 https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/new-symbol-launched-war...

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
The assumption that is made however is that whoever approaches a radioactive source will be able to understand the new sign. Another assumption is that this person will believe the sign- for instance, Egyptian Pharaohs went to great lengths to ward people off their buried treasures but their tombs were robbed anyway, by grave robbers who simply figured out it was all to keep them away from the goods. This concern was big in the mind of Gregory Benford and his team who designed the thorn fields etc- that a sign telling you to keep off may just be read as "here be treasure". Finally, the dearth of knowledge among the majority of the population on nuclear physics should not be underestimated. In the Goiania accident, and other similar cases, people realised that the radioactive sources they had found were important and potentially valuable, because they exhibited uncommon properties, like glowing in the dark or emitting heat (in Lia, Georgia, a 90Sr source with an activity of 1295 TBq was used as a heater by folks gathering wood in the forest). So they kept those sources, putting them in pockets and taking them home, to show their families and then probably looking for a way to cash in on them, until they were taken to hospital with strange illnesses. These actually seem to be pretty clear patterns of human activity and they don't seem to be deterred by simple signage, which is often present on medical equipment etc.
- vilhelm_s 9y ago
  Sure, but in Goiania (and in the similar accident in Samut Prakan), the people involved didn't disregard any warnings, it just didn't occur to them at all that the source might be dangerous. This also led to a delayed response, because people were getting sick but had no idea what might be causing it it. Putting an extra red sticker on the dangerous goods will not in itself keep spent nuclear reactor fuel safe for 10,000 years, but it's at least a good start. :)

mseebach 9y ago

Signage for a waste disposal site presumes a waste disposal site. If you’re recklessly leaving radioactive material around in an abandoned hospital, thinking about signage is a rather marginal improvement.

cr0sh 9y ago

The really dumb thing - it was all preventable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Hospital_abandonment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident#Hospital... "On September 11, 1986, the Court of Goiás stated it had knowledge of the abandoned radioactive material in the building. Four months before the theft, on May 4, 1987, Saura Taniguti, then director of Ipasgo, the institute of insurance for civil servants, used police force to prevent one of the owners of IGR, Carlos Figueiredo Bezerril, from removing the objects that were left behind. Figueiredo then warned the president of Ipasgo, Lício Teixeira Borges, that he should take responsibility "for what would happen with the caesium bomb" Apparently - the court posted a guard at the site, but it wouldn't allow the removal of any of the contents of the facility. The owners even "wrote several letters to the National Nuclear Energy Commission, warning them about the danger of keeping a teletherapy unit at an abandoned site". Then guess who got screwed - the very owners who tried and tried to warn about this deadly problem! From wikipedia: "In light of the deaths caused, the three doctors who had owned and run IGR were charged with criminal negligence. Because the accidents occurred before the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and because the substance was acquired by the clinic and not by the individual owners, the court could not declare the owners of IGR liable. One of the medical doctors owning IGR and the clinic's physicist were ordered to pay R$100,000 for the derelict condition of the building." While sure, they weren't found liable - that was probably small consolation.