Overview of the Radioactive Material Safety Program
Contact: Eric Boeldt, ejb6@psu.edu814-865-6391

Environmental Health and Safety has many resources to meet your radiation and radioactive material needs and our staff are eager to help you use these tools in a safe manner.

Every person who works with radioactive material at Penn State must

• Receive training from EHS and
• Receive specific hands on training by senior laboratory personnel or the authorized supervisor.
• In addition, every person working with radioactive material must receive annual refresher training. This training is normally provided to each lab in newsletter format.
• The laboratory supervisor must certify to EHS that each person in the lab has completed this training on an annual basis. The newsletter is usually distributed in February or March.

Each professor who supervises a laboratory that uses radioactive material must

• Receive training from EHS and insure all laboratory personnel complete the annual refresher training.
• Apply for an authorization to use radioactive material which may only be granted by the University Isotopes Committee (UIC). After the application is submitted to the Office of Research Protections, a completed application will usually be approved in three weeks.
• Be responsible for all actions dealing with radioactive material in his or her laboratory,
• Ensure that laboratory rules are followed,
• Maintain primary responsibility laboratory safety of personnel (SY-01).
• Submit a Request for Approval of Acting Supervisor if he or she will be leaving town for more than three months,

Environmental Health and Safety will periodically inspect each laboratory to ensure compliance with the requirements established by the UIC.

All radioactive material is delivered to EHS by outside vendors and then transferred to the laboratories after EHS staff survey the package and verify that the material being received is of the proper chemical compound and in an amount to be in compliance with the supervisor’s authorization to use radioactive material. Annually EHS will send to each supervisor a list of the supervisor’s radioactive material. This is to ensure that no radioactive material has been lost by the supervisor and to ensure that EHS’s inventory records are complete.

Radioactive waste generated by researchers must be placed into EHS supplied containers (exemptions will be authorized for special cases.) When the containers are full, lab personnel should request that they be collected and replacements delivered by completing a pickup request on our web site. EHS staff will not collect the waste unless it is properly documented and the documentation legibly signed.

Persons who work in and around your laboratory, but do not work with radioactive material, she be instructed to read the Radiation Safety Information for Ancillary Personnel. This basic information explains radiation, the radiation symbol, the basic rules to follow, and what to do in case of an emergency. Everyone in your laboratory should be aware of this information.