Uses of Uranium
Smoke Detectors
A commercial product that uses radioactive isotopes is the
household smoke detector. It is not generally known that most smoke detectors use radioactive americium, an
emitter of hazardous alpha ionizing radiation.
These detectors are a health hazard to fire-fighters and demolition crews.
After use they should be stored in properly designed, monitored, above
ground safe storage facilities. Instead most end up in the local rubbish
dump where they enter the biosphere and increase the dose of ionizing radiation
to people and the ecosystem in general.
It is not well known that smoke detectors which do not
use radioactive substances are readily available. These detectors use a
small beam of light to detect smoke. These photoelectric smoke detectors
are more reliable and less prone to false alarms than the radioactive,
ionization type smoke detectors.
Greater technical detail can be found on this topic by searching through
the listed briefing papers and education resources at
http://www.ccsa.asn.au/nic/.
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