Radioactive recall

Big-box retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond has issued a recall on metal tissue boxes at more than 200 stores across the country due to radioactive contamination.

Though no customers reported injuries or adverse health effects, the discovery underscores an issue drawing world leaders to a bi-annual nuclear-security meeting in Seoul, South Korea, on March 26-27, according to SFGate.com. Increasingly, scrap metal contaminated with radiation is reused for a host of products. More than 120 shipments of cutlery, buckles and tools were denied entry to the United States due to nuclear contamination between 2003 and 2008, after the Department of Homeland Security tightened radiation monitoring at borders.

“The general public basically isn’t aware that they’re living in a radioactive world,” said Ross Bartley of the Bureau of International Recycling.