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> Officials from Indonesia’s nuclear energy regulatory agency have traced the source of contamination to a steel manufacturer in the Cikande industrial area kno
by hinkley 1y ago
> Officials from Indonesia’s nuclear energy regulatory agency have traced the source of contamination to a steel manufacturer in the Cikande industrial area known as Peter Metal Technology, or PMT. Some of the highest levels of contamination detected in the area were reportedly found in the company’s furnace, which is about 1.5 miles southwest of the BMS Foods facility where the shrimp was processed.
> It’s unclear how it may have become contaminated with cesium-137. Biegalski, whose area of expertise includes nuclear forensics, told CR that the “easiest explanation” is that a medical or industrial device containing cesium-137 was inadvertently reprocessed as scrap metal. The radioactive material could have become gaseous after entering the PMT furnace and then been released from the facility’s smokestack, he said.
- arresin 1y agoImagine the lead contamination also
- hinkley 1y agoI saw a How it’s Made-esque show on aluminum recycling just a couple years ago, which is when I learned that aluminum-lead alloys are a thing, and have to be separated. They used a pneumatic blast picker, an x ray machine, and real time image processing to separate the lead from the other alloys. I’ve seen other such systems before, and in those the camera was usually around 30ms up the conveyor from the picker and it pushes the targeted materials into a separate hopper. The scan is parallelized to keep it real time.
- arresin 1y agoRecycling is pretty amazing. You have to imagine some lead is getting into the aluminium yeah?
- fragmede 1y agoYou have to imagine it's possible. Thankfully, aluminum cans have a plastic liner that separates the liquid from the metal container.
- hinkley 1y agoIt’s a bit fuzzy but I think these guys were making window frames rather than food grade materials. I do know that for certain impurities in metal recycling, they have a tendency to accumulate at the top or bottom of the billet, so cutting off those sides to make the billet square removes a lot of sins. But some documentaries don’t show this step, and some the billet doesn’t appear to have been modified before subsequent use. It’s possible that there are steps we aren’t shown/skipped as either trade secrets or too complex to explain.
- 7373737373 1y agoIn addition to x-rays, hyperspectral cameras can also be used to discern material composition at least superficially: https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Hyperspectral_Imaging_Assesses_the_Sweetness_of/a68686 https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Hyperspectral_Imaging_Ass... https://www.specim.com/hyperspectral-imaging-applications/hyperspectral-imaging-in-recycling-and-waste-management/ https://www.specim.com/hyperspectral-imaging-applications/hy... awesome tech
- hinkley 1y agoYeah the time before that when I encountered such a picker, someone was trying to recycle mixed plastics by chopping them up and the somehow with cameras they could see which plastic type it was. I’m sure they were using more than visible light to accomplish that. Sadly haven’t heard much since so I don’t know if they are still around, if it didn’t work at all or if they just couldn’t make it cheap enough. I don’t recall the name of the group. One is mentioned in your link and they achieves 98% purity, which may not be sufficient for industrial use.
- lima 1y ago"Released from the facility’s smokestack" sounds bad. Is it even possible to clean this up, if true?
- hedgehog 1y agoDepending on where it went, maybe. Scrape and remove topsoil and everything on top of it downwind where the particles settle. Dredge any waterways. Etc. Edit: You can read about one such cleanup after the incident linked here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_contamination_from_the_Rocky_Flats_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_contamination_from...
- lima 1y agoThis article is talking about relocating residents, doesn't sound great: https://kbr.id/articles/indeks/membongkar-ancaman-paparan-radiasi-cesium-137-di-cikande https://kbr.id/articles/indeks/membongkar-ancaman-paparan-ra...
- Polizeiposaune 1y agoComplicating matters, cesium's melting point is 28.5C/83.3F - given the Indonesian climate it's going to be liquid a lot of the time.
- lazide 1y agocesium is one of the most reactive metals known - it can’t stay in pure form in the atmosphere at all. it long ago formed compounds