eli5 How can non-radioactive elements and materials become radioactive?

Question

I understand how uranium is radioactive because it essentially tears itself apart but what I don’t understand is how like plastic and metal tools used to handle it becomes radioactive.

In: 1

Answer 1

If you bombard a material with the products of radioactive decay, like neutrons, some of those neutrons might collide with the atoms in the material making them transform into a unstable version of of element which may then undergo radioactive decay. Or little bits of radioactive dust might settle into the material and cause it to become contaminated with radioactivity that way.