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Safety in Radiation Detection
Familiarity with your Geiger counter includes awareness of safe use.
- Radioactive dust can be inhaled, ingested, or retained on clothing and shoes. Radioactive dust may result in lifelong exposures!
- Do not use tobacco, eat, or drink while sampling. This reduces the chances of ingesting radioactive dust.
- Wear long-sleeve shirts, trousers, and shoes that cover your feet. Do not wear sandals or open-toe shoes.
- Use disposable gloves to reduce cross-contamination between samples, and to reduce your exposure to dust.
- Do not bring contaminated samples, used masks and gloves, or dusty clothing into clean environments. Bag your dusty, used gear before entering your vehicle or home.
- Wash your hands after leaving the field. Better yet, take a shower.
Avoid radiation hazards whenever possible. If you find some high hot sample or field, USE YOUR HEAD AND YOUR NANO. Don't touch it or hold it directly. Back off. Walk away. Monitor everything. Make sure to spot-read yourself. Did you, your belongings, or your shoes pick up contamination? Don’t track it with you into your house. Be especially careful with food to avoid ingestion of radiation. For example, if you have open leafy vegetables from the market that contacted the hot spot or the matter’s dusty vicinity, use the nano to spot check the food for possible contamination. If in doubt, throw it out. Don’t take food along when you sample, and wash your hands afterwards.
Unfortunately, there's very little agreement within the health physics world about what levels of radiation are safe and unsafe. While experts agree that children and pregnant women are at greater risk, there's no clear cutoff point for safe levels and unsafe levels. The matter is very complex because risk varies based on age, existing health issues, exposure time, the areas of exposure, and other factors. Risk is best gauged on an individual basis, and not generalized to the entire population. What’s most important is being aware of what you are exposed to, so you can decide if the level of radiation is acceptable or not.
However, according to Safecast's Pieter Frankel, 100 counts per minute (equivalent to approximately .3 microSieverts per hour) above background level is considered contaminated.
This is a very difficult question. For an introduction to the subject, we recommend reading Guide to the Safe Handling of Radioactive Materials in Research.
If an instrument indicates an unexpectedly high dose rate, believe it and leave the area as soon as possible. Do not assume that it's an instrument failure. (Only assess the instrument's functionality once you're away from the high dose rate area.
The indicators and dose equivalent rate displayed by Geiger Bot are not a guarantee of safety. There are types of radiation that are difficult to measure with standard GM tubes (such as alpha, soft beta, neutron, and soft x-ray). The greatest risk to your health is likely from ingesting or inhaling radioisotopes, and a gross radiation background count cannot directly measure that.
Note that high-radiation zones are not for novices.
For more on radiation safety and safe use, see these resources:
The web has endless information on safe use of radiation detection devices. Find your own favorite safety page. Share your information and experience with others.