nuclear-news

PETITION: “Recycling” with radioactive materials is NOT acceptable!

Nothing has changed since 2000 that would justify lifting its current
ban. Rather, just the opposite: since then the National Academy of
Sciences has acknowledged that there is no safe level of radiation
exposure, and we’ve learned that women are even more vulnerable to
radiation than men (while children have long been known to be more
vulnerable than adults). The DOE’s proposal flies in the face of what
our society values most: protecting our children. It must be stopped
before it starts

Tell DOE: “Recycling” with radioactive materials is NOT acceptable!
Petition    http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=12406  25 Dec 12,
The Department of Energy (DOE) is considering a plan to allow
radioactively-contaminated metal from nuclear weapons facilities to be
“recycled.” This would allow this toxic metal to be mixed with clean
recycled metal and enter into normal commerce—where it could be turned
into anything from your next pants zipper to baby toys. Act below to
stop this outrage!

Background

This DOE action is just the foot in the door….if it’s allowed to
occur, expect more efforts to deregulate radioactive materials from
both DOE and NRC.

We’ve fought this battle before. In the late 1980s, NRC adopted a
policy it called “Below Regulatory Concern (BRC),” that would have
allowed about 30% of the nation’s “low-level” radioactive waste to be
treated as normal garbage and dumped in landfills, be burned in
incinerators, and yes, be recycled into consumer products. According
to the NRC’s own calculations, its BRC policy posed a 1 in 286 risk of
fatal cancer over a person’s lifetime.

NIRS and our allies responded with one of our largest organizing
campaigns ever. Grassroots activists succeeded in getting hundreds of
towns, cities and counties to adopt anti-BRC resolutions. The texts of
those resolutions were sent up the chain to Governors, state
legislators and Congressmembers. They responded: 15 states passed laws
banning BRC within their borders. Hearings were held in the House and
in 1992, Congress officially overturned the BRC policy.

But both NRC and DOE have been trying to implement the concept
piecemeal ever since. In the late 1990s, DOE proposed a similar
program to deregulate radioactively contaminated metal. Instead, DOE
was forced to suspend the idea indefinitely—a suspension that stands
today and that DOE is now trying to lift. Even DOE admits this program
was defeated due to “public concern.”

Nothing has changed since 2000 that would justify lifting its current
ban. Rather, just the opposite: since then the National Academy of
Sciences has acknowledged that there is no safe level of radiation
exposure, and we’ve learned that women are even more vulnerable to
radiation than men (while children have long been known to be more
vulnerable than adults). The DOE’s proposal flies in the face of what
our society values most: protecting our children. It must be stopped
before it starts……
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=12406

December 26, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized