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A 56-year-old is suspected of having stored radioactive waste in his garage in Seiersberg-Pirka in the Graz-Umwelt district for six years. According to the police, however, there was no specific danger to people or the environment.
A waste disposal company was commissioned to clear the garage, which is not open to the public, and the employees came across a total of 26 plastic drums. Contamination was then identified during the standard inspection of the waste.
No danger to people or the environment
During further examination of the barrels, the radionuclide cobalt 60 was found. The radiation from the radionuclide was measured from a distance of up to one meter – according to the police, this should not have caused any impairment to people. Due to the nature of the plastic containers in which the contaminated objects and materials were stored, no liquids escaped and therefore no contamination of land or water.
Motive: financial difficulties
Further investigations by the police revealed that the waste came from deposits on a cyclotron, a circular accelerator used to produce, among other things, drug components. The machine must have been in operation for around 15 years in a company producing pharmaceutical drugs.
The former managing director was also responsible for the waste disposal – and the 56-year-old brought the waste into the garage between September 2015 and October 2021. The company was in financial difficulties and ultimately bankruptcy, and all of this led the suspect, according to the police, to the decision “of improper disposal”.
Now properly disposed of
According to a police spokesman, there is only one company in Austria that disposes of such radioactive waste from medical technology – this is located in Seibersdorf in Lower Austria near the Austrian nuclear research center. Now the barrels were brought to this special company after all; the 56-year-old is shown.