Monday, March 28, 2011

Are ceramics and bowls and plates sold today still radioactive?

Relax. You are fine. Even if the glaze were radioactive, you did not have enough exposure to it do you any harm. It is a matter of degree, just like being exposed to sunshine can be harmful if done long enough over a long period of time. Fiestaware dinnerware was indeed glazed using depleted radioactive uranium compounds. However after 1972, those compounds were replaced by other non-radioactive ones. (See the link below and read the article for yourself.) However, even the pre-1972 Fiesta dinnerware were not sufficiently radioactive to present harm to people using it. They only should not have been used to hold acidic foods like tomato sauce, or orange juice, because the acids in the food could react with the glaze and cause it to dissolve in the food, and ingested by people. However, again, after 1972, this is no longer a problem due to substituted materials.

No comments:

Post a Comment