Naturally Occurring Radioactive Waste Disposal (N.O.R.M.)

Do you have scrap metal that has set off a gate monitor at a scrap yard leaving you wondering, "What do I do with my radioactive scrap metal?" ADCO Services is here to help. ADCO is able to have one of our fully trained contracted technicians monitor and dispose of all types of radioactive scrap metal as well as irradiated metals. 

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Occasionally radioactive materials can unknowingly be sent out as scrap metal. There are several types of radioactive materials that can end up in scrap metal yards for recycling. An example is, some industrial devices contain a small quantity of safely enclosed radioactive material called a sealed source. Found or abandoned radioactive sources are called orphan sources where many times their markings and labelings have been removed, damaged, or are just no longer legible. Orphan sources do not have an owner and usually cannot be traced back to the original generator to make the original generator dispose of the source properly.

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In the event that radioactive materials are disposed of improperly or sent for recycling as scrap metal, the radioactive material can end up at a facility that is not licensed to handle this sort of special waste or have the training to do so. To avoid a situation of unknowingly receiving radioactive materials, recycling and waste facilities often times have devices called portal monitors also called "Gate Monitors" that can detect radiation in batches of scrap metal and in many cases these "Gate Monitors" are so sensitive, they can even detect a very small amount of radioactive material in a large load of scrap metal forcing the scrap yard or waste collector to many times refuse the entire load or be forced into sorting through the load to find what is radioactive inside the load of scrap metal. 

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Often times managers at scrap metal yards and disposal sites walk around a load using sensitive hand-held radiation scanning devices many times called Micro R Meters on loads to discover unwanted radioactive materials before they can cause widespread contamination throughout the entire scrap yard. In a few cases, radioactive materials have been unknowingly shredded, sent to mills, and melted. When that happens, all the metal from that load and the equipment used to handle the load of contaminated scrap was contaminated and could no longer be used and must be disposed of. Cleaning up a facility in an event such as that can cost millions of dollars.