Cookware radioactive?

Factual Questions
1

Today’s archive (Is red Fiestaware radioactive) reminds me of my paranoid colleague who won’t buy a pot. His reasoning goes like this:

  1. Some years ago, China bought a whole lot of steel that had been scavenged from closed nuclear reactor. (I guess that’s a fact.)

  2. This steel was highly radioactive. (Makes sense.)

  3. Virtually all cookware in the stores is, like everything else, imported from China. (Largely true.)

  4. They are probably selling us back the radioactive steel in various forms, including pots. (Any possibility that this is true? Without anyone noticing? Or pure paranoia?)

What’s the straight dope on this?

2

If you have a tin foil hat and don’t have a geiger counter, you’re a poseur. Have your friend go shopping with you and measure the pots.

3

One would think that the supply of tainted steel would be used up by now…

But, yes, it’s theoretically possible. The same thing happened in Mexico. Most of the radioactive steel ended up in rebar.

Maybe he should buy aluminum or copper pots…

4

Not possible, at least not since 2003. Cargo containers are screened for radiactivity at all US ports. You could certainly sneak in a few radioactive pots, and some products have snuck into the supply chain, but avoiding all pots is goofy. Anyway, the amount of radiation would be attenuated by mixing the old steel with new.

5

It’s all slightly radioactive due to atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the 1940s-1960s.

For making radiation detectors and other radiologically sensitive equipment, steel from pre-1945 sources is used- primarily old naval vessels.

6

Very neat. The Wiki link mentions that they’re even using steel from the German ships scuttled at Scapa Flow. Ain’t that something?

7

Believe it or not, we even priced geiger counters. The cost (a couple hundred bucks he was not willing to spend). I certainly won’t.

He’s not quite tin hat. He is not a conspiracy theorist and has never suggested they are doing anything besides reading his email.

9

”A little extra radiation might be good for you.” (Deliberately slightly misquoted for rhetorical effect.)

10

That’s what I was thinking. A shipload of pots and pans wouldn’t have any special shielding. So you’d think somebody would take notice if a boatload of radioactive material showed up at some American port.

11

And was only spotted because a load of it accidentally showed up at Los Alamos, of all places. That kind of coincidence suggests to me that there is probably quite a lot more radioactive steel around that doesn’t get spotted.

12

Some neutrino experiments can’t even settle for 20th-century scuttled ships: They use shielding made from the lead ballasts of sunken Spanish galleons. There, they’re not just worried about background from nuke detonations, but from cosmic rays.