Why is radiactive contamination so hard to clean up?

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I saw a video that said that Chernobyl will not be habitable for another 20,000 years. I was curious as to why it takes so long to clean up radioactive contamination? Also for Chernobyl specifically as technology progresses couldn’t we find new methods that significantly reduce the amount it takes for Chernobyl to be habitable again?

Sorry for bad Grammer.

In: Chemistry

16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It isn’t always. We clean it up on the regular. Consider it to be “dust” that we can detect insanely minute quantities of, using a magic detector. Down to single atoms.

It’s not terribly difficult to clean dust *on hard surfaces*. A waxed floor? Mop and bucket. We use windex and duct tape a lot too.

Contamination outside? Totally different story. You ever try mopping your lawn? How long until it’s “clean”? Never? Yeah, sounds about right.

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