How safe are we from radioactive radiation in our daily lives? Recent cases of radiation from metal scrap contaminated with radioactive Cobalt-60 in the capital?s Mayapuri scrap market, apart from sending a few people to hospitals and the authorities into a tizzy, have raised certain fundamental issues regarding this largely ignored problem. Can these substances, considered immensely hazardous for human health and environment, make their way so easily into public spaces? While authorities, including the city police, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), scratch their heads to figure out the origin of the hazardous radioactive scrap and how it made its way into a public space, the incident itself is shocking and alarming. And, this just might be the tip of an iceberg.
Ravi Agarwal, director, Toxics Link, an environmental advocacy organisation, says the problem is an enormous one and needs to be tackled urgently. According to him, the real problem lies with the imported metal scrap and lack of tracking and screening mechanisms for this scrap as it makes its way into our towns and cities. ?Every day, 5,000 tonnes of metal scrap enters the country. Frankly, there is no mechanism at any of our ports to check it for radioactivity. Metal scrap comes in huge containers and it requires radioactive screening devices to check for any radiation problems,? he says. Apart from the usual scrap imports, other activities like ship-breaking of foreign vessels at Indian ship-breaking yards like Alang have further fuelled the problem. In a few cases, these ?dead? ships have been later found to be containing toxic and radioactive substances, which went undetected by the port authorities.
External threats
Although how the radioactive scrap landed at the market is still not confirmed, officials at the department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the AERB are confident that the source of this menace is from some other country. ?Nothing of what has been found till now in Mayapuri is from within the country,? says Dr SK Malhotra, head, Public Awareness Division, Department of Atomic Energy. He says the Board of Radiation and Isotope Technology (BRIT) is the sole manufacturer and supplier of Cobalt-60 in the country. ?We definitely know what they make and what has been found certainly doesn?t match that.?
?India is a big importer of metal scrap from around the globe. Many countries are not strict with their laws and what happens is that radioactive material at times gets mixed with steel and enters the country?s scrap markets,? says SP Agarwal, former head, Radiological Safety Division, AERB.
The problem isn?t limited to scrap markets and ports. Radiation can reach us right where we are, including our homes through finished products made of recycled metal that might have been radioactive. Metal scrap is used widely for recycling in India and there have been instances that remind us how this problem can manifest itself in different ways. In 2008, France?s Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) found that the elevator buttons used by Otis consisted of materials sourced from an Indian supplier. Twenty French workers who handled the buttons had been exposed to excessive levels of radiation. The culprit in this case too was Cobalt-60. Investigations revealed that the material was recycled by an Indian company that imported scrap from Europe and the US. In a separate case, Sweden also stated that steel items imported from India and delivered to four factories in Sweden had shown faint traces of radioactivity. But these weren?t recalled as the level of Cobalt-60 in the steel was not considered harmful by the Swedish authorities. These cases highlight how common objects can also end up being hazardous and the need to screen metal scrap, particularly that being used for recycling.
Who?s responsible?
The problem has many more dimensions, such as the lack of accountability and the absence of an effective monitoring agency that could look at possible sources and objects that pose a radiation threat in the public domain. ?We don?t know which agency is responsible for preventing these types of accidents. The DAE agencies, AERB and BARC, have their job defined and they are doing that. The environment and forests ministry says it is not their responsibility, the customs and excise authorities shrug off the responsibility saying that it is not their mandate either,? says Agarwal.
The AERB is responsible for overseeing and enforcing safety in all nuclear operations in the country and to track, license and dispose of all nuclear and radioactive material sourced from within the country. This involves regulation of operations in the nuclear power plants of the country. In addition, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) is also entrusted with the task of managing and disposing radioactive waste generated in nuclear plants. And, it is a job that experts across the board believe is being done well by the AERB and the BARC.
This can, perhaps, be attributed to the peculiar state of affairs wherein only the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) is authorised to deal with matters relating to nuclear technology. The AEC devises policies for the DAE. And, unlike most policy matters where the Union Cabinet has an authority, the AEC falls directly under the PMO. This allows other ministries and departments of the government to just slip out of any responsibility or accountability in matters relating to nuclear technology or nuclear and radioactive waste. Since the subject falls out of the purview of the state administrations, even they ignore the problem. This was evident from a notification by MoEF earlier this month under the Hazardous Wastes (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules. It empowered state pollution control boards to register importers of waste and includes other hazardous and polluting substances like cadmium, lead, mercury, photographic wastes and mining waste. However, there are no precautionary notes on radioactive waste in the said notification.
From whatever has come out of the Mayapuri case, it is evident that the problem is a complex one and requires a coordinated effort from various departments and ministries as it involves various areas like imports, science, health and environment.
?A very serious problem has come to the surface,? says Dr KP Mishra, vice-president of the Asian Association of Radiation Research and the former head of Radiation Biology and Health Science Division at BARC. ?All over the world, there are stringent regulations to oversee the scrapping of radioactive material to protect the people and their health. In our country, the AERB is doing its job, but whatever it is doing, is limited to the establishment. We need something now that looks at this problem in totality and not just with regard to our nuclear power plants and reactors.?
Need for nodal agency?
A view echoed by Agarwal. He believes that forming a nodal agency to monitor radioactive waste and material in the country can go a long way in tackling the problem. ?The problem we have is also because there is no particular agency that is entrusted to deal with this issue. We require not only entry point screening, but even cross-state movement monitoring mechanism to detect hazardous substances. An elaborate tracking system is needed so that nothing falls off the radar,? he says.
He adds that such an agency could coordinate various activities between the state pollution control boards and other departments of the government, thereby involving them into the process as well and making it more fool proof. ?Places that are more likely to end up having such material should have zone monitors to check their radiation levels and also at the state borders and on road trade routes, so that any suspicious material could be detected and handled at the earliest. Nuclear technology is now becoming a part of our daily lives and these problems need to be dealt with as daily problems,? he says.
While AERB and DAE officials maintain that most of the problem will be sorted if the first level of screening of imports is done at the entry points, they too feel the need for greater coordination. ?Having a separate agency for monitoring radioactive substances won?t be a good idea,? says Dr SK Malhotra. ?AERB is doing a good job in its domain. As far as the public domain is concerned, what we probably might need is a bigger agency that would look into not only radioactive waste, but also things like lethal chemicals and other dangerous substances. Having separate agencies will lead to great confusion. What is required urgently is action by the customs and excise authorities at our ports and other entry points.?
Perhaps India can learn from other countries in dealing with this issue. In the US, the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) regulates all matters relating to the environment, including radioactivity. Radioactive wastes in the US are categorised as bio-medical waste and every scrap dealer is required to have radiation monitoring machines while every consignment is required to go through radioactive screening. All major check-posts on state boundaries, hospitals, ports and airports have radiation monitors.
The other problem that has come to surface with this incident is the lack of awareness among the people regarding radioactive waste and other hazardous substances.
Hemraj Gupta, president of the Mayapuri Market Association, says none of those who suffered had any knowledge of what radioactivity is and how to hazardous it can be. ?No one, including the government, warned us of any such risk. Now after this incident, our business is down by more than 50%,? he says. ?Once a person has been exposed to radiation, there is not much left in our hands,? he adds.
He believes that the role of NGOs and other societies working in this field can be a critical force in order to deal with such situations. ?Their assistance should be sought in devising strategies to tackle the problem. They should be entrusted with the job of creating awareness among the people as well,? he says.
Veil of secrecy
According to Agarwal, nuclear issues have never been discussed in the country, neither in the civil society, nor in the media. ?The media is reluctant to talk about any nuclear issue. Possibly as they think it is too technical or a defence matter. But now nuclear technology is more widespread, there is a need for greater public awareness,? he says. He adds that public information is the need of the hour so that people who are vulnerable to such accidents know the dos and don?ts in order to protect themselves and those around them.
Concerns have also been raised in certain quarters about the possibility of a planned radioactive attack by anti-social elements. ?Such a small incident has created such panic. We can hardly imagine what would happen if a planned terrorist attack of this nature were to take place. I am certainly worried about that,? says Mishra. Agarwal concurs, stating that this aspect of the issue needs to be looked into thoroughly, especially with the capital slated to host the Commonwealth Games in a few months? time.
As a knee-jerk reaction, the Delhi Police are now procuring radiation meters to check the radiation levels in the city. Also, the AERB and NDMA jointly plan to comb the Mayapuri scrap market and maybe other such markets in the future as a preventive measure. ?A decision has now been taken that an officer from the AERB/BARC will be posted in Delhi and one unit of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) will be attached to him for combing the Mayapuri scrap market completely and maybe in due course of time, other scrap markets as well. Maybe this practice can be followed throughout the country across various states,? says Malhotra.
Delhi chief secretary Rakesh Mehta held a high-level meeting with the Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi Pollution Control Committee, BARC and department of industries among other bodies last week. Mehta says the matter is a serious one and the administration would be taking required steps, while declining to spell out any details of possible plans.
With India set to accelerate its nuclear energy programme in the coming decade, nuclear waste management is emerging as an area of considerable concern. Will this incident be a wake-up call for our agencies and the government to correct the flaws in the prevalent system, is something that will be revealed only in the future.
Meanwhile, whatever action happens on this long-ignored issue can be considered to be the first steps in avoiding such incidents in the future.
