Sometime greenies mourn the fact that we have polluted the earth with radioactive particles that can't be all collected and cleaned up. And they think about how toxic some of them are, and how long some of them will last.

Here is my thinking on the subject.

All radioactive material is made up of atoms. Each atom has a half-life. Either it decays quickly, or it decays slowly. If it decays quickly it turns into something else which might also be radioactive in which case you just consider that atom instead. If not, well, you are done, the radioactive-ness has decayed away. So just wait a while and all the radiation problems will go away on their own.

Greenie: "But what about the atoms that don't decay quickly?" Well, you don't have to worry about them because they are barely radioactive, they decay so slowly that they present very little threat.

This logic isn't flawed, but it does skirt around some things.

If you have a large amount of long-half-life material, it can be dangerous for a long time. And if you have a large amount of medium-half-life material, it can be really dangerous for a medium time.

In those cases, the answer might be to dilute the material. Because it is the concentration that causes the radiation risk. Mix it in with dirt, mix that dirt in with more dirt, then bury the dirt. That seems to some like you are poisoning the Earth, but the Earth gave us this radiation in the first place, usually as Uranium. It already has dilute radiation. If you dilute well enough, it should be fine in terms of the radioactive issue.

The final thing I'm skirting around are the chemical properties of medium to medium-long half-life materials. Some of these things have weird toxic chemical properties independent of their radiation. So... um... don't eat them.

And have a nice day!