https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/radioactive-metal-tiss....
I would really like to know how much of a problem is it, how much of global steel supply is tainted. Can we be buying cars and other items made with steel that's contaminated?
Here's an article on the cleanup, which mentions the copper theft as an aside:
https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/one-greate...
Either way, this is a legitimate concern that's happened in scrap metal processing all over the world: https://web.archive.org/web/20060614013429/http://www.iaea.o...
Another interesting tidbit (and how I found the above pdf): all steel made after 1940 is slightly radioactive due to nuclear testing, and unsuitable for high sensitivity applications. Some ships sunk in WWI are the primary source of all low-background steel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel
These are fixed installations, monitoring mostly truck traffic 24/7, so their effectiveness doesn't depend on available manpower or current interest. Eastern Europe from Poland to the -stans has a lot of them, because former soviet republics had a lot of radioactive material lying around that was suddenly less important and even less guarded after the Cold War.
(Scientists were also suddenly out of work, and feared to be receptive to corruption. Fun fact: George Soros spent dozens of millions of his own money to empty a bunch of nuclear physicists in the 90s).
The point being: if it were a widespread problem, it would definitely be noticed.
That should be a good start.
Is there anything this monster won't do?
The purpose being to keep them busy and well-fed, preventing them from handing over nuclear material to terrorists for cash.
If it wasn't the mixed-up word or irony, I'd be really confused how this could be likened to the actions of a "monster".
[0] https://recyclinginternational.com/business/radioactive-elem....
Notice the weasel word "plenty", you're still trying to imply there's something special going on there when this whole thread is full of people talking about steel contamination going on globally.
You also claimed they "are willing to accept incredibly dangerous(and expensive to recycle) material and melt it into their main steel supply." when your own article is about radioactive contamination being tracked down in a way that indicates that it's not the norm.
Here's an article about China explicitly denying radioactive scrap. None of the examples involving other countries in this thread seemed willful either.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1996/07/03/China-demands-check-...
In May 1998, a caesium-137 source managed to pass through the monitoring equipment in an Acerinox scrap metal reprocessing plant in Los Barrios, Spain. When melted, the caesium-137 caused the release of a radioactive cloud. The Acerinox chimney detectors failed to detect it, but it was eventually detected in France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The radioactive levels measured were up to 1000 times higher than normal.
Smartphone cameras are sensitive to radiation (radiation produces additional spurious reading in camera sensors - additional noise over thermal one) and it is possible to use these cameras to more or less accurately measure radiation levels.
http://www.prepguard.com/prepguard-geiger-counter-radiation-...
https://soeks-usa.com/collections/radiation-detectors/produc...
In 1989, a small capsule containing highly radioactive caesium-137 was found inside the concrete wall of an apartment building, with a surface gamma radiation exposure dose rate of 1800 R/year.
The source, originally a part of a radiation level gauge, was lost in the Karansky quarry. The gravel from the quarry was used in construction. The cesium capsule ended up in the concrete panel of Apartment 85 of Building 7 on Gvardeytsev Kantemirovtsev Street, between apartments 85 and 52.
Over 9 years, two families lived in Apartment 85. A child's bed was located directly next to the wall containing the capsule. By the time the capsule was discovered, 4 residents of the building had died from leukemia and 17 more had received varying doses of radiation. The accident was detected only after the residents requested that the level of radiation be measured in the apartment by a health physicist. Part of the wall was removed and sent to the Institute for Nuclear Research (NASU), where the cesium capsule was removed and disposed of.
The total number of deaths is alternately reported as 2, 4 (3 children and one adult), or 6 (4 children and 2 adults).