How is it that radioactivity “sticks to/infects” other things/environments that is exposed to radiation?
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Radioactive dust, like most dust, gets everywhere. It can even be absorbed into living creatures. This is the most common kind of radioactive spreading, although the rarer kind where neutron radiation transmutes nuclei does happen in nuclear reactors.
‘Radioactivity’ doesn’t stick to anything, it’s the form the radioactive substance takes that makes it dangerous. If you have aerosolized some radioactive element, it can get on and in people causing damage. If you have something like a spent fuel rod then it isn’t terribly dangerous as long as you aren’t close to it because it will be encased in a solid and won’t transport through the environment.
1) bioamplification where plants absorb the radioactive elements from soil/air/water and store it in itself. Insects and small smaller animals eat the plants, gaining the radioactive elements along with it; increasing the amount the have with each bite. Larger animals eat the smaller, etc, etc. Each step in the chain gets a larger amount.
2) ionization where the energetic particles leaving the radioactive elements run into atoms knocking off electrons causing the atom to become charged. A single particle can cause ionization along their whole path as they travel. The electrons that are knocked off then also speed away, also causing secondary ionization.
Radioactivity is not stuck or infecting stuff. Radioactivity is the act of emitting radiation spontaneously by an atomic nucleus. The radiation is primary alpha (helium cores), beta(electrons), or gamma radiation (high energy electromagnetic waves). They can ionize atoms and break apart molecules but what is hit does not become radioactive.
What can change another thing is radioactive contamination. That is the deposition of radioactive atoms on other materials. So it is the physical transfer of atoms between objects. So dust or other stuff that sticks to something.
If you are out in mud your clothes will likely get dirty from it. If the mud contains radioactive atoms they would be transferred to your clothes. You will not be able to wash away all of it, some will stick.
If you are in smoke from a fire some of it will get trapped in your clothes and they continue to smell smoke. If the fire contained radiative atoms they to would tick your clothes.
If there is radioactive dust in the air and it rains it can be transferred by the rain down into the ground. If it is atoms that is what plans use or are similar to they can be absorbed by the plans just like nonradioactive atoms.
So radioactive contamination is physical transfer of atoms. Because very little radioactive material can be dangerous if you are exposed to it for a long time just cleaning something is likely not enough to remove enough of it.
There is a caveat to the first “Radioactivity is not stuck or infecting stuff.” statement. The released radiation can be neutrons and they can get absorber by an atomic nucleus and transmute to some radioactive isotope. Neutron radiation is not that common so it is not a major effect. In will be a lot of them produced in nuclear reactors when they operate and it will make the reactor enclosure and other parts in it radioactive. I will not be a major factor outside of the reactor.
Plutonium-239 which is used in most nuclear weapons are produce by the transmutation of Uranium-238 in nuclear reactors. Other radioactive isotopes like Cobalt-60 are made that way too. It is used as a radiation source in medical and other applications.
So neutron radiation can “infect” stuff but only to a relevant degree in nuclear reactors or other artificial neurons sources. Out in the world, it is radioactive contamination that is the problem, radioactive dust and and smoke that physically transfer atoms.
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