- NEWS
- SPORTS
- BUSINESS
- ENTERTAINMENT
- LIFE
- TRAVEL
- OPINION
NRC dings Wal-Mart for radioactive exit signs
November 2nd, 2009, 12:40 pm · 22 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
By Lindsey Ambrose
America’s biggest retailer is in trouble with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for improperly disposing of radioactive exit signs throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.
The NRC has cited Wal-Mart for violations concerning improper disposal and transfer of exit signs containing tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. The violations were issued on October 28 claiming that from 2000 to 2008 Wal-Mart failed to properly dispose of 2,979 tritium signs. The company also failed to appoint an official responsible for complying with regulatory requirements issued by the NRC and failed to report broken or damaged signs as required.
Exit signs containing tritium do not pose a large threat to the public’s health, but a damaged or broken sign can cause minor radioactive contamination of the immediate environs and calls for prompt clean up. Thus, we’d say that proper record-keeping of broken signs isn’t a petty request.
The NRC could have imposed a $369,300 fine, but once Wal-Mart caught wind of the problem, it made a speedy effort to clean up its act. We are told Wal-Mart made a record of all tritium exit signs at its facilities nationwide, corrected contamination from damaged signs at several stores, and consequently removed all tritium exit signs in its stores and swapped them with signs that do not contain radioactive material.
“Because Wal-Mart realized it had problems and took significant and effective corrective actions, we believe it is appropriate not to impose a civil penalty in this case,” said the NRC’s director of enforcement, Cynthia Carpenter.
A media spokesperson for Wal-Mart said that it no longer use these signs because of the complex regulatory requirements.
In January, Wal-Mart concluded after a year long audit that approximately 15,000 of its tritium exit signs were lost or unaccounted for. From 2001 through 2007 Wal-Mart purchased approximately 70,000 signs to install in its facilities, and after discovering that some were missing, the company initiated the inspection.
Take this as warning if you yourself are a tritium sign possessor.
The NRC is subsequently requesting that more than 60 other organizations known to have hefty quantities of tritium exit signs send in reports of their radioactive signs and how they are being monitored. The NRC will review the reports and take further enforcement action if necessary.
“Our inspection, and the extensive actions Wal-Mart had to undertake to resolve our concerns, should stand as a warning to other organizations and corporations not to be lax in their handling of devices containing radioactive material,” said Carpenter.
For the list of the other 60 companies receiving a demand for information see the NRC’s website here. A few of our favorites include NASA, the U.S. Postal Service, and Home Depot.
More Watchdog:
Reader Comments
Comments are encouraged, but you must follow our User Agreement.- Keep it civil and stay on topic.
- No profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs or personal attacks.
- People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked.
22 Comments
Leave a Reply
You can follow this blog: on 
Were they made in China?
LOL Dats a goood 1
no if they were …lead would be the problem
This is a typical business practice for Wal-mart. I dont know why people are surprised? Their business practices have been quite bad.
Have you seen a tritium exit sign? They are just exit signs with glow sticks in them. Tritium is used for everything from making numerals on watch-faces glow to nightsights on firearms. Its half-life is just over 12 years and it decays into non-radioactive Helium3. I believe there has been less than 600 pounds of the stuff made since the mid 1950s.
Why on earth would anyone use or even make radioactive signs? Do they glow in the dark better or something?
Wal-mart’s hiding an H-bomb, man!
Happens all the time, typically less than a dozen
trit signs are dumpstered instead of returned.
The tritium makes them glow without
electricity for years.
Walmart releases more tritium than San Onofre!
Note: its ok to dumpster your smoke detector
which has 1 microcurie of a radioactive
nuclear-byproduct element heavier than plutonium.
And it saves lives.
So that’s what turned them all into ‘Wal-Mart’ people.
HAHA! Makes total sense now!!
Straight from the NRC list how ironic:
Navy Radiation Safety Committee, Washington, D.C.
Tritium is a gas. It is naturally found too. We should worry more someone getting cut on the broken glass from the tubes.
So THAT explains the people on that “People of Walmart” website. They are radioactive mutants.
You get enough tritium and it works for a second stage nuke! Some surplus optical grinders and some nut job terrorist with some of the right stuff and poof! part or all of a city is gone! (Of course in some places it would be considered urban development?) Thanks Wallmart!
Did Iran bid to dispose of this waist for cheap? Hmmmm?
I used to take care of these for one place I worked. The beauty of the tritium exit signs is that you don’t have to connect them to a power supply to glow when the power is out. But you ship the broken or old signs back to the manufacturer - they’re recyclable - so you only pay for shipping. There are no disposal costs - a big company like WalMart should have a corporate EH&S person who knows this. Duh!
This is a bunch of cra….This is only an article becuase of Walmart name and thus the OC runs it. Every business should be highlighted in the media if they have the same violation. Equal justice for all. Lets check every starbucks, target, home depot, Planned Parenthood and government building…. See how silly this is. The risk is microscopic to humans. There is more risk you would be infected with influenza walking in a store. Lets sue them for allowing these germs inside.. We should put everyone in jail who has every thrown away a lightbulb or battery.
Someone look into a WalMart/Iran connection. They’re terrorists!
how ironic that they are promoting themselves to going ‘green’ on their new documentary. Still have those sweat shop, labor issues, though. They are one frightening international monoply. In China they sell 2k dollar bottles of wine a week. Hooray for capitalism off the sweat and backs of the poor.
To JR: Everything is made in China because manufacturing has been driven out of America with inane laws by power hungry politicians trying to make themselves look useful. 40+ yrs ago practically everything including their components were made here.
Now we know how the Chines are getting rid of there atomic waste. Hay, are bathroom towels suppose to glow in the dark.
Wal-Mart is the demise of America. Don’t shop there…..
“Exit signs containing tritium do not pose a large threat to the public’s health, but a damaged or broken sign can cause minor radioactive contamination…”
From the above article, yet no mention of the amt or what they mean by “minor”.
Typical of liberal arts (media); they think they are “writing a science article” but all they are using are words but do not give any quantitative numbers.
It sure seems, that the moment anything “nuclear” is mentioned in an article, media writers anyways seem to take a neg spin on it.
In regards to NRC, let us not forget that those are political appts by the present political party that is in “power”, and in some cases the rank & file below them cannot be removed, as they are “civil servants” who got hired when the party that dislikes nuclear power were in power as well.
can enough of these signs become a threat to national security if they were to be gathered and combined if thye had 15,000 unaccounted for signs plus any other products dumped containg trtium, is this stuff radioactive enough to have a possibility of a terrorist cell creating a dirty bomb or worse…….
I guess this brings up another topic what else have companies or anyone else dumped that is radioactive not safely do we have another thing to worry about? it it is that would be a really really nasty and bad problem to have on the worlds hands…………