The
RSO for the licensee reported the hospital inadvertently disposed of 78 millicuries of Xenon-133 through the solid waste system. The hospital believes that a housekeeper may have thrown it away as solid waste. Couriers delivered the material without the knowledge of the hospital on 3/13/09. Later that same day, the licensee believes that the housekeeper picked up the boxes that the material was located inside of and mistakenly threw them away as waste. A search of the facility was conducted without success. The licensee is not taking any action to recover the material from the dump. All trash is compacted on site into a common container. The trash has already been taken to the landfill and buried. The licensee is not taking any action to recover the material from the dump. The licensee has taken corrective actions with the couriers and designated a new storage area for the material in a restricted area. Housekeeping will no longer be handling the boxes. This licensee does not consider the loss be a threat to the health and safety of the community.
THIS MATERIAL EVENT CONTAINS A "LESS THAN CAT 3" LEVEL OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL
Sources that are "Less than IAEA Category 3 sources," are either sources that are very unlikely to cause permanent injury to individuals or contain a very small amount of radioactive material that would not cause any permanent injury. Some of these sources, such as moisture density gauges or thickness gauges that are Category 4, the amount of unshielded radioactive material, if not safely managed or securely protected, could possibly - although it is unlikely - temporarily injure someone who handled it or were otherwise in contact with it, or who were close to it for a period of many weeks.
This source is not amongst those sources or devices identified by the
IAEA Code of Conduct for the Safety & Security of Radioactive Sources to be of concern from a radiological standpoint. Therefore is it being categorized as a less than Category 3 source