> From my perspective it was a localised and relatively limited risk
Localized? Yes. But limited? You can't see radiation. The absolute worst case would be someone getting it stuck into a tire or a shoe, spreading radiation everywhere they go.
Radiation is not "spread" in the manner you are suggesting. The only affect on passers-by would be transient exposure - less than ideal, but not a fatal risk.
If the capsule were breached and radioactive material were spread, then that would be a disaster posing actual risk to the public at large.
> Radiation is not "spread" in the manner you are suggesting
"[in] 1987 in Goiânia, Brazil [..] a forgotten radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated"
"In the consequent cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses, including personal possessions, were seized and incinerated"[0]
That incident would appear to confirm that radiation (from a radioactive source) is able to be "spread".
In the Wikipedia article it’s clear that the container of the caesium 137 was punctured and the grains of caesium powder were handled by many people and spread on surfaces.
That’s just the original source of beta particles being spread around rather than the beta radiation “spreading” in some way.
> Radiation is not "spread" in the manner you are suggesting. The only affect on passers-by would be transient exposure - less than ideal, but not a fatal risk.
The problem is secondary irradiation. Everything contaminated by exposure - even a car - has to be taken, destroyed and the waste dealt with as radioactive waste.
Like, you mean the entire 800 million tonnes of iron ore per annum delibrately exposed to radiation guages such as this all needs to be treated as radioactive waste?
Even after it's been turned to steel and worked into bridges, building, cars, etc?
I hadn't realised things were that serious :/
Still, I guess reality is in the middle ground and there are degrees to contamination here.
> Even after it's been turned to steel and worked into bridges, building, cars, etc?
For that reason metal recyclers run routine radiation scans on all incoming materials before contaminated material enters the supply chain [1][2]. And there have been a number of such incidents[3][4].
> For that reason metal recyclers run routine radiation scans
Just to be clear here .. are you actually claiming that raw iron ore tumbling through a loadout and being density scanned:
* actually contaminates the ore and converts it into the equivilant of radioactive waste?
* that metal recyclers are finding signs of > 800 million tonnes per annum of radiated metals?
* that no one has noticed this and seen fit to write an evironmental study paper about it?
Is there any chance here you conflating actual radioactive metals turning up in recycled metals with what is a long standing global practice that doesn't created dangerous radiatctive iron?
Uranium has been used for brightly colored ceramic glazes.
Americium is used in smoke detectors, and I assume doping with small amounts of radioactive materials occurs in other applications where encouraging cold sparking or arcing is desired.
Localized? Yes. But limited? You can't see radiation. The absolute worst case would be someone getting it stuck into a tire or a shoe, spreading radiation everywhere they go.