this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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Radioactive contamination: things don't transfer the property of radioactivity to everything they touch and/or irradiate. If that were the case, the entire ~~Earth~~ universe would have become radioactive gray goo long, long ago.
When radiation workers talk about "contamination," we mean radioactive compounds have physically transferred from one object onto/into another. For example, tools becoming contaminated with radioactive metal dust from equipment they touch, or clothing absorbing radioactive iodine gas from the air.
There is a form of radiation called neutron radiation that does make some formerly stable things (mainly metals) radioactive. This isn't something you're likely to encounter unless you're a specific type of radiation worker, however.
This is mainly gear-grindy to me because the reason we don't have gamma-sterilized produce in the US is completely unfounded fear that gamma irradiation "contaminates" everything it touches. So we could be having lovely fresh strawberries and peppers that last weeks longer than they usually do, but no, we can't because rAdIaTiOn ScArY π
Now that you mention it, it does make sense but I never t thought that you could sterilize food with radioactivity.
It is called cold pasteurization, seen some things labeled as such before.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_pasteurization
That will inturn lead to, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
Physics/nuclear literacy in the general public around the world is lower than bad, even many scientists from other fields seem to be genuinely uninformed or misinformed, then posting wrong and often alarming interpretations in social media, which laymen give weight to because "it's coming from a scientist", never mind that their expertise may be in areas of biology or astronomy, nothing to do with the subject they are posting about. And they themselves might have gotten their bad info/interpretation from other figures in academia.
I was about to go hold up, but neutrons ... And then you covered it.
What about contamination in disaster sites like Chernobyl or Fukushima? Is that also mainly radioactive substances that we're spread around the area by air/water making the whole place dangerous to live or are other previously-non-radioactive objects radioactive now?
Yea basically the main contamination issue is that radioactive substances were spread around. Contamination of the surrounding area isnβt the only issue we have to deal with, nor is it the most serious, but it is generally is the most costly remediate.
The contamination problem is caused by radioactive matter spewed into the air and settling on the trees, buildings, ground etc⦠in the surrounding area.
The main remediation strategy is to remove everything in the surrounding area including the top ~3 ft or so of soil of the and haul it off to an underground landfill to slowly decay for at least a few hundred years safely separated from humans.
The former, unless those disasters also included neutron radiation (admittedly I don't know much about either disaster)