India’s nuclear authorities have admitted radioactive scrap was exported from the country to make elevator buttons in France.
French firm Mafelec sent thousands of lift buttons to the elevator maker Otis, which put them in hundreds of elevators in the country over the summer.
Otis said it removed the buttons after France’s nuclear safety authority (ASN) announced this week that 20 workers who handled them were exposed to doses of radioactivity ranging from 1 to 3 millisievert (mSv). The French legal limit for people who do not work in the nuclear industry is 1mSv per year.
The ASN said it had classified the incident at Mafelec as level two on the international nuclear event scale. The scale goes from zero, which means no safety risk, to seven, which means a major accident…
Indian foundries are not required to install radiation detectors to check scrap, but the government has a programme to put radiation monitors at ports to check cargo.
Which obviously didn’t result in anything being done.
So, next time you get into a dimly-lit elevator, you may be able to see the buttons just fine.
How come i never see the same radiation exposure metric twice???
and guess where all those fingers that pressed all those buttons are going…
Well, when you go to press the button, and you can see the bones inside of your finger……
Ah the joys of Third World outsourcing. Freaking elevator buttons!
Don
This is why I pick my nose before pressing elevator buttons, to provide that bit of insulation.
#4. Good idea. I’m going to start picking your nose before I ride the elevator too.
Wonder what they put in the elevators they ship to Pakistan…oh, right…they don’t use elevators there!
The French have two limits for radiation exposure? One for people who work in the industry and one for those who don’t? That’s like having two limits for blood alcohol level, one for bartenders and one for everybody else.
#4, Ed,
I never would have thought of you as a “lead head”.
8)
*
When will people learn that self regulation really means no regulation. As we have seen time and time again, we import this crap only to find out later it is contaminated by E. COLI, or has lead paint, or glycol or whatever.
And this is the crap that has been discovered. What has been imported that is dangerous we don’t know about. #8, Get Smart gives another great example.
Too bad the story didn’t provide real health physics information, like radiation levels on contact with the buttons. The French non-occupational exposure limit is 5 times lower than the US limit but you can pick that up just by smoking or flying commerical airliners. Even a single xray can get you there.
#9 What percentage of the population returns old smoke detectors to the manufacturer like the label says? Remember the Radioactive Boy Scout?
All the fish are dying; but don’t worry – the water is safe to drink.
#9 – Fusion, before I missed the opportunity I had to tell you how much I LAMO yesterday when you said, “You’re a phucking, dickless, asswipe, useless piece of excrement who hasn’t contributed anything intelligent in all your comments.”
There is a possibility that we were separated at birth!
#8 – Interesting news item, GetSmart. But you better recheck the details. The steel capsule was part of a radiotherapy machine from a hospital in Texas, not Mexico. It just got sold to Mexico as scrap. And this apparently violated no laws! Ain’t trade politics wonderful? The capsule’s 6,000 Cobalt-60 pellets, were exposed by a scavenger, who was too illiterate to know about radioactivity. So he sold it to another scrape dealer. And thus the pellets made their way into everything processed there.
This whole fiasco plays out like that movie “The Day the Fish Came Out” (1967). Where a lost doomsday weapon ends up in the hands of Greek peasants, who break into its concrete box and ignorantly contaminate the world’s water supply. Bye, bye humans.
I vaguely remember 1984. But what I sure as hell DON’T remember, was hearing a word of this story in the news. Thanks Reagan-Bush, for stifling the nation’s press.
As for the whole India elevator buttons thing. I think we should just play it safe and suspect everything that’s imported into the US. And put tariffs on these goods to offset the cost of inspections and lost domestic jobs (like Japan does). That’ll put a crimp in Walmart’s profits.
I live near Three Mile Island, doesn’t effect me!