SECCRA TO BEGIN MONITORING FOR RADIATION AT LANDFILL

New regulations from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) require SECCRA to begin to monitor all incoming waste for radioactivity when it arrives at the landfill.

The purpose of this new program is to detect items that might be disposed in the landfill that shouldn’t be.  The reasoning behind the new regulations is to protect public safety and promote homeland security.

Since the goal of this monitoring is finding items in the trash that are radioactive, it is inevitable that some of the things that you might throw away would set off the radiation alarm. 

A broad category of these wastes are associated with radioactive medicine.  Iodine-131 is a common substance used in radioactive medicine.  Sometimes, if the patient blows his or her nose into a tissue, shortly after a treatment, the tissue might set off the alarm at the landfill.  Also, the discarded undergarments of incontinent patients may also set off the alarm.

SECCRA has equipment which not only will detect radioactivity, but will also identify the actual substance that is radioactive. 

Should a load which activates the radioactivity alarm arrive at the landfill, it will be sent to an isolated area where trained SECCRA staff will determine the type and intensity of the radioactivity present.  The staff will then contact the DEP to advise them of the situation, and that SECCRA will not accept the load for disposal.  The load will be disposed at a site which will accept it.

In no case will SECCRA dispose of a load of waste which activates the alarm.

Sometimes the source of a radioactivity alarm is not the load, but the driver.  In past instances at other Pennsylvania landfills, a driver who received an X-ray that morning had enough radioactivity in him to activate the alarm.