By Jonathan Tirone and Andrew MacAskill - Mar 20, 2012 4:23 PM GMT+1000

Bags from Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.
store in New York. Photographer:
Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Going shopping? Don’t forget your wallet and credit card. Or Geiger counter. 

The discovery of radioactive tissue boxes at Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) stores in January raised alarms among nuclear security officials and company executives over the growing global threat of contaminated scrap metal. 

While the U.S. home-furnishing retailer recalled the boutique boxes from 200 stores nationwide without any reports of injury, the incident highlighted one of the topics drawing world leaders to a nuclear security meeting in Seoul on March 26-27. The bi-annual summit, convened by President Barack Obama for the first time in 2010, seeks to stem the flow of atomic material that has been lost, stolen or discarded as trash. 

Pedestrians pass in front of a Bed Bath &
Beyond Inc. store in San Francisco.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

As U.S. and European leaders tackle the proliferation of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium in countries like Iran and North Korea, industries are confronting the impact of loose nuclear material in an international scrap-metal market worth at least $140 billion, according to the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling. Radioactive items used to power medical, military and industrial hardware are melted down and used in goods, driving up company costs as they withdraw tainted products and threatening the public’s health.

‘Major Risk’

“The major risk we face in our industry is radiation,” said Paul de Bruin, radiation-safety chief for Jewometaal Stainless Processing BV, one of the world’s biggest stainless- steel scrap yards. “You can talk about security all you want, but I’ve found weapons-grade uranium in scrap. Where was the security?” 

More than 120 shipments of contaminated goods including cutlery, buckles and work tools like hammers and screwdrivers were denied U.S. entry between 2003 and 2008 after customs and the Department of Homeland Security boosted radiation monitoring at borders. The department declined to provide updated figures or comment on how the metal tissue boxes athe said. 

Nuclear Risks at Bed, Bath & Beyond Show Dangers of Scrap

By Jonathan Tirone and Andrew MacAskill - Mar 20, 2012 4:23 PM GMT+1000

Going shopping? Don’t forget your wallet and credit card. Or Geiger counter.

The discovery of radioactive tissue boxes at Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) stores in January raised alarms among nuclear security officials and company executives over the growing global threat of contaminated scrap metal. 

While the U.S. home-furnishing retailer recalled the boutique boxes from 200 stores nationwide without any reports of injury, the incident highlighted one of the topics drawing world leaders to a nuclear security meeting in Seoul on March 26-27. The bi-annual summit, convened by President Barack Obama for the first time in 2010, seeks to stem the flow of atomic material that has been lost, stolen or discarded as trash. 

As U.S. and European leaders tackle the proliferation of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium in countries like Iran and North Korea, industries are confronting the impact of loose nuclear material in an international scrap-metal market worth at least $140 billion, according to the Brussels-based Bureau of International Recycling. Radioactive items used to power medical, military and industrial hardware are melted down and used in goods, driving up company costs as they withdraw tainted products and threatening the public’s health.

‘Major Risk’

“The major risk we face in our industry is radiation,” said Paul de Bruin, radiation-safety chief for Jewometaal Stainless Processing BV, one of the world’s biggest stainless- steel scrap yards. “You can talk about security all you want, but I’ve found weapons-grade uranium in scrap. Where was the security?” 

More than 120 shipments of contaminated goods including cutlery, buckles and work tools like hammers and screwdrivers were denied U.S. entry between 2003 and 2008 after customs and the Department of Homeland Security boosted radiation monitoring at borders. The department declined to provide updated figures or comment on how the  metal tissue boxes at Bed, Bath & Beyond, tainted with melted cobalt-60 used in medical instruments to diagnose and treat cancer, evaded detection. 

Rachael Risinger, a spokeswoman for Union, New Jersey-based Bed, Bath & Beyond, said in an e-mail on Feb. 29 that “all possibilities to address this issue are being explored and implemented as appropriate.”

No Health Threat

The company said in a January press release it had been informed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a U.S. government agency that oversees radioactive material, that “there is no threat to anyone’s health from these tissue holders.” It said they had been withdrawn “out of an abundance of caution.” 

Rotterdam-based Jewometaal, which found 145 nuclear items in scrap last year and 200 in 2010, reports incidents to Dutch authorities and the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency. De Bruin keeps pictures of the nuclear-fission chamber containing bomb-grade uranium and other scrap with plutonium that he’s uncovered using radiation monitors at his shipping yard. 

Cleaning a smelter of radioactive material erroneously melted inside can cost a company as much as 40 million euros ($53 million) and disrupt production for a week, he said.

(Read more:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-19/nuclear-risks-at-bed-bath-beyond-show-hidden-danger-of-scrap.html