Good for him. This was an absolute ridiculous case. Lots of everyday items contain radioactive substances: old smoke detectors, uranium glass, old watches with radium dials, anti-static brushes, the list goes on and on. As a side note: coal power plants put quite a bit of radiation into the environment (technically 100x more than nuclear plants, if you sidestep the issue of waste), because coal contains Uranium and Thorium.
The amounts of Pu that were imported were not only minuscule, but also embedded in acrylic for display. As an alpha radiator, this is 100% safe to have and put on a shelf. You would have to completely dismantle it, crush the few μg of Pu into dust and then inhale it to be dangerous to your health.
I understand that people are afraid of radiation. I am too. However, it is important to know that radiation is everywhere all the time, and it is always about the dose. At the same time, we allow for instance cars to pollute the environment with toxic particulates that lead to many cancers, and somehow we accept this as unavoidable. But I digress...
For those interested, here's a video from "Explosions and Fire" on this issue, a channel I highly recommend anyway, this guy is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0JGsSxBd2I
The amounts of Pu that were imported were not only minuscule, but also embedded in acrylic for display. As an alpha radiator, this is 100% safe to have and put on a shelf. You would have to completely dismantle it, crush the few μg of Pu into dust and then inhale it to be dangerous to your health.
I understand that people are afraid of radiation. I am too. However, it is important to know that radiation is everywhere all the time, and it is always about the dose. At the same time, we allow for instance cars to pollute the environment with toxic particulates that lead to many cancers, and somehow we accept this as unavoidable. But I digress...
For those interested, here's a video from "Explosions and Fire" on this issue, a channel I highly recommend anyway, this guy is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0JGsSxBd2I