Radioactive materials are being released from nuclear weapons facilities to regular landfills and into commercial recycling streams where they can be used to make everyday household items.

This is a key finding of a new NIRS report: Out of Control – On Purpose: DOE's Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills and Consumer Products. The report was commissioned to track the DOE’s policies and procedures for releasing nuclear wastes from nuclear bomb production. The report was released on May 14, 2007.

Under the current system, the DOE and other nuclear waste generators either release contaminated materials directly or send their waste to processors who can then release it from radioactive controls to landfills, to recyclers or to auction for reuse.

The report includes a detailed assessment of DOE’s policies, and a special focus on Tennessee which licenses companies to bring nuclear waste into the state where it is then processed and in some cases “redefined” as not radioactive or as “special.” It can then be sent to regular trash dumps or other facilities. This opens up the potential for the materials to enter the recycling stream to make everyday household items or to be used to build roads, schools, and playgrounds.

For a copy of this report: http://nirs.org/radwaste/outofcontrol/outofcontrolreport.pdf

For the executive summary of this report: http://nirs.org/radwaste/outofcontrol/executive_summary.pdf