Hospitals may need tanks to hold radiation waste

HOSPITALS providing radiation treatment to patients may be required to build holding tanks to stop radioactive waste getting into seawater through the sewage systems.

A study of seaweed samples from coastal waters and the effect of hospital activities is being carried out by experts from the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII). The study is examining the presence of the radioactive material, iodine-131, which is used to treat cancers and in some diagnostic procedures.

Its potency is only at full strength for about eight days, however, so the use of holding tanks to delay its release into the sewage systems and onward into the sea would safeguard against contamination.