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Yikes! Bed, Bath & Beyond Recalls Possibly Radioactive Tissue Boxes
Image via the Department of Public Health
If you bought a metal tissue box cover from Bed, Bath & Beyond recently, you should check to make sure that you didn't buy a model that could—no joke—possibly contain radioactive materials.The state department of public health says some of the tissue boxes might have been contaminated with radioactive cobalt-60. The state also claims that these boxes don't pose an immediate health threat. But you might want to err on the side of caution and return the “Dual Ridge Metal Boutique tissue boxes."
How on earth could radioactive material end up in a household product? The state explains:
Cobalt-60 is a man-made product that is typically used to sterilize medical products or in cancer radiation therapy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated that scrap metal containing cobalt-60 could have strayed into a metal load smelted in India and been incorporated in these products.
The issue was discovered when some trucks bound for our fair state set off some radioactive sensors at a truck scale, according to Gothamist.The models were sold around many stores in Southern California: Oxnard, Canoga Park, Pasadena, Chula Vista, San Diego, Fontana, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Studio City, Valencia, West Covina, Oceanside, Yorba Linda, Ontario and good old Los Angeles.
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