Wal-Mart's glow-in-the-dark mystery

[SidDithers]

Source: Toronto Star

It began in late 2007 as a routine audit. Retail giant Wal-Mart noticed that some exit signs at the company's stores and warehouses had gone missing.

As the audit spread across Wal-Mart's U.S. operations, the mystery thickened. Stores from Arkansas to Washington began reporting missing signs. They numbered in the hundreds at first, then the thousands. Last month Wal-Mart disclosed that about 15,800 of its exit signs – a stunning 20 per cent of its total inventory – are lost, missing, or otherwise unaccounted for at 4,500 facilities in the United States and Puerto Rico.

Poor housekeeping, certainly, but what's the big deal?

In a word: radiation.

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/article/587906

---

Interesting article from today's Toronto Star. Tritium is really only dangerous if ingested or inhaled.

Sid

[whosinpower]

1. somebody

Is gathering material for a dirty nuclear bomb.

[baldguy]

3. Google "Radioactive Boy Scout"

[bananas]

8. David Hahn, the Radioactive Boy Scout

"After dropping out of community college, Hahn joined the Navy, assigned to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise as an ordinary seaman.
Hahn had hoped to pursue a nuclear specialist career, but was not even permitted to tour the reactors. EPA scientists believe that Hahn may have exceeded the lifetime dosage for thorium exposure, but he refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station.<2>. Later, Hahn re-enlisted as a Marine."
"On August 1, 2007, Hahn was arrested in Clinton Township, Michigan for larceny, in relation to a matter involving several smoke detectors, allegedly removed from the halls of his apartment building. In his mug shot, his face is covered with sores which investigators claim are possibly from exposure to radioactive materials.<3> During a Circuit Court hearing, Hahn pleaded guilty to attempted larceny of a building."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

[baldguy]

9. That isn't acne on his face.

[MADem]

4. What, some WAL MART associate is running all over the world, grabbing signs?

Sounds to me more like someone at corporate HQ put out the word, quietly...but forgot to tell the stores to replace the signs with something less toxic.

[TheWraith]

13. No, they're not. That's patently absurd.

Tritium is a low-level beta-emitter. It's only dangerous if inhaled and/or ingested in large quantities, and the quantities used in these signs are pretty tiny.

You could load tons of tritium into a "bomb," detonate it, and have absolutely no effect.

[Posteritatis]

17. But I heard The Terrorists(tm) will ram it down my throat before detonating it! (nt)

[Deja Q]

2. They have millions of cameras in every store and they couldn't catch somebody nicking a large SIGN?!

:dunce:

[Vanje]

5. Where I work, there are lots of cameras

8 of them are fake.
The 2 that theoretically work dont have a reciever .

[Tansy_Gold]

19. Theft

About 12 years ago I worked at a new Wal-Mart store. As a cashier I often had to fill in while the assigned "greeter" went on break. . . . or didn't show up.

At any rate, one evening I was "greeting" out in the lobby, where we had a split screen tv monitor that showed what the four exterior-mounted security cameras were watching. The idea was to let people think their cars and persons were safe in our "secure" parking lot and to let would-be shoplifters believe they'd be spotted in the parking lot. ha ha ha ha ha.

This particular evening, I was watching the monitor as a way of passing time until the regular greeter returned. Suddenly I noticed one quarter of the split screen went blank. I didn't think anything about it; no one had ever told me anything about the system. A few minutes later, a second panel went blank. And by the time the regular greeter returned, three of four sections were out.

I asked the greeter -- who is touted as being a member of the security team -- what it meant. He didn't have any clue and said not to worry about it. But on my way back to my cash register, I mentioned in passing to one of the store managers that the security cameras were on the blink.

By the time the manager got out to the lobby monitor, all four were out.

Afraid that someone might have cut wires in preparation for a heist, the manager sent a member of the real security team outside to check.

What they found was that all four security cameras had been stolen. While the store was open.

[Psephos]

22. Funny story :) n/t

[RubyDuby in GA]

32. My mom worked for Wal-Mart several years ago and she said back then that the cameras were fake.

Just there to have the appearance that people were watching. The only ones they watched were the employees.

[MADem]

6. Someone at HQ probably got the word that the signs are a workplace hazard, and they're

getting ahead of the lawsuit curve.

They probably forgot to tell the managers to replace the fucking things with something nontoxic.

[TheWraith]

14. Tritium-powered signs aren't toxic. They're used virtually everywhere.

The tritium is well-contained within the signs, and even if ruptured they wouldn't really be dangerous. Pretty much every major store has at least one tritium-powered emergency sign.

[MADem]

16. If one breaks, it's three chest x-rays.

That's what the article said. The litigation team at WM HQ is probably being cautious. No one would have noticed if they'd said "replace" instead of "remove" is what I am speculating.

[TheWraith]

20. Even assuming that's true, it's a trivial dose.

A chest x-ray is about 8 millirem of radiation. The safe limit for a single radiation exposure, as designated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is 500 millirem. Radiation sickness begins at around 50,000 millirem.

[MADem]

26. It doesn't matter, though. Perception is what rules. To people who don't need chest xrays, three

of them is three too many.

I'm just speculating, anyway. Perhaps someone on the WALMART board of directors got wind that this is gonna be the "next big thing" and they're getting in front of it, is all I am suggesting.

What else makes sense? Anyone got a better idea?

[TheWraith]

28. These are in use in every major store. There's estimated to be two million in circulation in the US.

Chances are that every big box store, department store, and most of the larger restaurants you've ever visited have one. They're long since known to be safe.

I'm willing to bet that there's a small rash of employees stealing them, or just disposing of broken ones, and it's being played up for more than it really is.

[MADem]

29. Well, I don't claim to know. It just seems to be an odd story. nt

[FatDave]

37. "What else makes sense?"

When I was reading this, I was thinking maybe there's something in them that could be used when making meth. Doesn't sound like it though.

[lame54]

33. It's hell...

Being in a Walmart with no exit

[Whoa_Nelly]

7. Another reason to never go into Wal-Mart

Sent the article on to a few friends.

[HopeHoops]

10. We need ANOTHER reason to avoid WalMart - I thought the list was already long enough!

[Whoa_Nelly]

12. It is!

But, I still have friends that think they are getting a great deal when they go there.

Me? Stopped going there years ago.

[HopeHoops]

18. Yeah, I have friends who think Bush was a good president - go figure.

[Warpy]

11. This is a little silly and very alarmist

The signs were likely damaged or fell down and were tossed into the trash. By the time their tritium leaches from the landfill into ground water, it won't be much above the natural occurrence.

A sheet of paper--or clothing--will stop that type of radiation.

I think it would take several million signs to come up with enough tritium for an evil genius to turn it into a fusion bomb, and then he'd have to sweat making the trigger.

He'd have much better success making a dirty bomb out of old wristwatches with radium dials.

[SidDithers]

35. Oh, I agree completely...

it was just one of those strange things I came across while drinking my coffee and reading the paper. Thought it might intrest fellow DU'ers.

Cheers.

Sid

[crikkett]

40. Warpy and Sid have seen the fnords

be afraid! Terra!

[SidDithers]

41. I had to look up fnords :)...

and was amazed to see that it was used by Robert Shea. Shea wrote one of my favourite books (actually 2 books) of all time, Shike.

Now I'm going to have to go find a copy of The Illuminatus! Trilogy :hi:

Sid

[BlueJazz]

15. Perhaps the signs contain Trillium......Something Val-uu-able

[remoulade]

23. oops

...

[Psephos]

25. In Michigan, trilliums have an even better value :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillium

[baldguy]

31. Trillian?

[Goldom]

21. Wait a minute...

exit signs glow with radioactivity??? Are they talking about the green ones, that say EXIT?

Why not just use a light bulb behind a green filter? That's what I assumed they were...

[Posteritatis]

24. "radioactive" doesn't necessarily mean "a nice bowl of Chernobyl flakes"

There's degrees of the stuff. The smoke detector in your house is radioactive too, but not to a level worth caring about. To even get an exposure from these signs you'd have to smash them, strip naked and roll around in the residue. And eat it.

[TheWraith]

27. Even if you did that, it would be a trivial dose.

The reason that they use beta-emitting tritium is for emergency lighting. If the power goes out, for instance in a fire, then the sign HAS to stay lit to guide people to the exit. Tritium gas, placed in sealed leaded-glass container lined with phosphor which glows when exposed to beta radiation, provides guaranteed light for about 10-12 years, which is vastly more reliable than any kind of battery-powered solution.

[bvar22]

38. If I did all of that....

....would I glow in the dark?

Cool!

[wroberts189]

30. good snippet...

And what about exposure from thousands of signs dumped near a source of drinking water, or packed with explosives in the back of a truck that has been driven into a crowded building?

"I'm sure thousands of them would create a credible dirty bomb," says Norm Rubin, director of nuclear research at Energy Probe in Toronto. "Most experts think the main purpose of a dirty bomb is to cause panic, disruption and expensive cleanup rather than lots of dead bodies. A bunch of tritium, especially if oxidized in an explosion, would probably do that job fine."

[TheWraith]

36. You're talking about a "bomb" the size of a building, which would STILL have little to no effect.

You might get a 3% increase in the incidence of cancer, ten years later.

To have any effect, you need an absolutely MASSIVE amount of radiation. All tritium produced in the US in a year wouldn't do it.

[Cirque du So-What]

34. To those who are on the verge of a nervous breakdown over this story...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

...get a grip.

[RagAss]

39. AAAAHHHHHH We're all gonna die !