I am sure that most people are not aware that some of the consumer products that are present around us contain Radioactive Material/s (RAM) (i.e. Uranium).

1. Radioactive Consumer Products
I am sure that most people are not aware that some of
the consumer products that are present around us
contain Radioactive Material/s (RAM) (i.e. Uranium).
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I am posting this, not to scare the public but to raise
their awareness on what common consumer products
contain this RAM. Furthermore, this is to inform
them that radiation has many uses in our daily lives.

2. Take a look at the following images and see if you
recognize them if they are present in your homes.
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Check — Up Gum
Check- Up Gum helped fight plaque. As the gum was
chewed, tiny granules of zirconium silicate (the third
listed ingredient) scraped the teeth clean.
The reason that Check·Up Gum is featured here is
that the zirconium silicate contained elevated levels

3. of uranium and thorium (e.g., 100 pCi/g). The
amount of zirconium silicate in the gum was such
that the uranium concentration is approximately 7
pCi per gram of gum. Since the uranium series is in
secular equilibrium, the gum also contains 7 pCi of
Ra-226 per gram. As a matter of interest, there have
been many situations where this level of radium in
soil has required remedial action.
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Although Check·Up Gum is no longer produced,
zirconium silicate continues to be used in dental
pastes and some toothpastes. Nevertheless,
consumers can rest assured that the radiation dose is
negligible — the radioactive material is bound up in
the zirconium silicate and would not be assimilated
even if swallowed.

4. Tape Dispenser
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This is a 3M Model C-15 Decor Scotch tape dispenser.
It is slightly radioactive due to the
thorium-containing monazite sand that was used as
ballast. This particular example came from a 55
gallon drum of tape dispensers that the U.S. Army
was about to dispose of as radioactive waste.
Jewelries
As a result of an investigation in early 1988 by the Los
Angeles County Health Department, various state
radiation control programs in the U.S. issued
warnings concerning the manufacture and use of
jewellery made from old watch parts. These parts
often included radioluminescent watch faces and
hands. The jewellery, which included broaches,

5. bracelets, earrings, etc. had become quite popular
and because it was easy to produce, the typical
manufacturer was a small business operating out of
someone’s home or apartment. Production is known
to have occurred in California, Oregon, Texas and
Pennsylvania. The radiation control programs in
Tennessee, Texas and possibly some other states
invited the public to bring suspect jewellery to their
offices to be monitored for radioactivity.
The usual mode of manufacture was to dismantle old
watches, clean the parts with some sort of abrasive,
polish the pieces, assemble the jewellery, and
possibly coat it with an acrylic spray. It seems that
there was no awareness on the part of the
manufacturers of the potential hazards.
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6. Even though some of the jewellery was worn in direct
contact with the skin, and a number of premises were
found to be contaminated (e.g., up to 50,000 cpm),
there were no reports of injuries to individuals who
wore or manufactured the jewellery. Nevertheless,
one individual, who had been making such jewellery
for six years, was found to have “1/30 of a body
burden of radium-226.”
Potassium Chloride Water Softener Salt
Hard water contains more minerals, especially
calcium and magnesium, than ordinary water. This
can lead to the build up of scale in pipes and
appliances. A water softener is used to reduce the
concentration of these minerals.
In essence, a water softener consists of an ion
exchange resin that removes the minerals as the

7. water flows through it. After a while, the resin
becomes saturated with these minerals and it no
longer functions. At this point, a salt solution is
added to the resin. The salt exchanges with the
accumulated minerals, and allows them to be washed
out of the softener into a drain. This rejuvenates the
softener.
A variety of materials can be used as the water
softener salt, e.g., sodium chloride (NaCl) or
potassium chloride (KCl). In the example shown
here, the water softener salt is over 99% potassium
chloride.
All potassium contains potassium-40, a naturally
occurring beta gamma emitter, and in large enough
quantities it is easily detected with a simple survey
metre. This bag, for example, could not get through a

8. monitor at a nuclear power plant without setting off
an alarm.
Smoke Detectors
The ionisation chamber smoke detector was invented
in the early 1940s in Switzerland , and introduced
into the U.S. in 1951.
The sensitive component of the ICSD is an ionisation
chamber that is open to the atmosphere (photo below
left). A radioactive source inside the chamber emits
radiation that ionises the air in the chamber and
makes it conductive.
Ionisation chamber smoke detectors almost always
use alpha emitters as the source because of the high
density of the ionisation that they produce.

9. Most ICSDs sold today use an oxide of americium-241
(Am-241) as the radioactive source. The typical
activity for a modern residential ICSD is
approximately 1 uCi, while the activity in one used in
public and commercial buildings might be as high as
50 uCi. In 1980, the average activity employed in a
residential smoke detector was approximately 3 uCi,
three times higher than it is today.
Am-241 is an alpha emitter, but it also emits a low
energy (59.5 keV) gamma ray. The Am-241 is mixed
with gold and incorporated into a composite gold and
silver foil sandwich. The source is 3 to 5 mm in
diameter, and either crimped or welded into place
inside the chamber.
Other nuclides have also been used. NRC records
indicate that approximately 124,000 ICSDs were sold
between 1971 and 1986 that employed nickel-63

10. (Ni-63). These units averaged approximately 10
microcuries of Ni-63 each.
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Radium-226 (radium sulphate) was the first
radioactive source used in smoke detectors.
According to NUREG/CP-0001, U.S. producers
stopped making Ra-226-containing smoke detectors
in 1963 when they switched to Am-241. Nevertheless,
according to NCRP 95, it would seem that
radium-containing ICSDs continued to be sold in the
U.S. at least until 1978. A typical residential smoke
detector contained 0.05 uCi of Ra-226, but some
contained up to 0.1 uCi. Commercial smoke detectors
employed considerably higher activities.
Article Source: BUY NOy