30 tons of contaminated material seized, intended for industrial production
Milan – Thirty tons of stainless steel contaminated with Cobalt-60, a radioactive isotope with a high level of radioactivity and a half-life of six years, were seized by the Carabinieri Environmental Protection Command.
The material had been distributed across several Italian provinces, including Brindisi, Campobasso, Treviso, Milan, Lucca, Frosinone, Latina and Mantua.
Investigations coordinated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Parma confirmed that the radioactive materials originated in China and entered Italy through the port of La Spezia.
The metal was intended for the production of industrial components—such as pulleys, extraction hoods, tanks and hoppers—and could have posed a risk to workers’ health and the environment. Experts, however, ruled out direct harm to the general population.
The seized batch was part of a larger shipment of approximately 350 tons of steel that arrived at the commercial port of La Spezia in May and was owned by the Chinese company Tysco.
Some of the material had already been sold to Italian companies which, having not detected the contamination, had begun processing it. The remaining steel was stopped and subjected to inspections, revealing partial contamination with Cobalt-60.
Analyses confirmed that the metal was destined for various industrial sectors, including ventilation systems, hoods and metal structures.
According to investigators, the contamination was likely caused by an accidental event: during the melting of scrap metal, radioactive material from an “orphan source” may have been incorporated—i.e. a radiological source that had escaped regulatory control.
Italy is the second-largest importer of metal scrap in Europe after Germany, a factor that makes continuous radiometric controls at ports and processing facilities essential
For this reason, Italiana Robot checks imported materials—both from abroad and domestically—using a Geiger counter.
A Geiger counter is a specialized device capable of detecting radiation present in a given area. The contamination level is displayed on a digital screen, together with a text field indicating the level of radioactive risk (low / medium / high).
The detected value is measured using three different units:
1) Sieverts per hour (Sv/h)
2) Counts per minute (CPM)
3) Roentgens per hour (R/h)
The device is also equipped with flash memory, a Wi-Fi module, and dedicated software that allows full customization of the graphical user interface.