Dry Cleaning v Radioactivity

December 27, 2007 2:14 AM

Does dry cleaning kill radioactivity? Asks a mum on Christmas Day when her husband and daughter get back from a trip to Chernobyl: "His coat and trousers were 'dry-clean only'. OK, so it had to be. But, we wondered, does dry cleaning get rid of radio-activity? Or does it just spread it to every one else’s clothes at the cleaners?"
posted by tombola (25 comments total)

Absolutely. A good dry cleaner will take the radioactivity out back and put a bullet in its head. A less reputable dry cleaner will put the radioactivity in a sack and throw it in a pond where it might be eaten by fish, causing mutations. A really sleazy dry cleaner will grind the radioactivity up and sell it to elementary school cafeterias as mouse meat.
posted by "Tex" Connor and the Wily Roundup Boys at 2:26 AM on December 27, 2007

First off, no need for the hyphen between "radio" and "activity". And if dry cleaning will get rid of radio activity, I'm gonna start getting all my clothes dry cleaned, cause there's nothing but crap on the radio these days.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:31 AM on December 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

This long after the accident, most of the iodine-131 has decayed but there is probably a lot of cesium-137 (and strontium 90) still around. Cesium is easily absorbed into soil so a good washing in petroleum solvent should help.

What the dry cleaner does with the contaminated solvent is another matter.
posted by three blind mice at 3:03 AM on December 27, 2007

Why should I, as a loyal Russian and a party member, have to wear these lead-lined underpants?

Because if you don't, comrade, Chernobyl fallout.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:14 AM on December 27, 2007 [8 favorites]

Saves you eating the Ready Brek
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:37 AM on December 27, 2007

Regarding flapjax's no need for the hyphen between "radio" and "activity" comment: That is a direct quote from the source cited. Most likely it was an error in line breaks and formatting..."cause" you have no time to check your own post for grammar/spelling/usage issues. I look forward to diagrams of mine. Actually, I don't. I'd rather return to the topic post.
posted by bonobo at 3:53 AM on December 27, 2007

Of course dry cleaning gets out radioactivity. And using the toilet after a boy will get you pregnant.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:12 AM on December 27, 2007

Doesn't this question belong on the Green?
posted by wendell at 5:02 AM on December 27, 2007

Sometimes it's okay to throw something out.
posted by clevershark at 5:09 AM on December 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

Radio-Activity
Is in the air for you and me
Radio-Activity
Discovered by Madame Curie
posted by SansPoint at 5:12 AM on December 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

I'd rather return to the topic post.

Please do, bonobo! So, "whaddaya" think, huh? Dry cleaner's "gonna" get that "radio-activity" out?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:15 AM on December 27, 2007

Doesn't this question belong on the Green?

Doesn't that question belong on the grey?
posted by grouse at 5:17 AM on December 27, 2007 [3 favorites]

Doesn't this question belong on the Green?

Doesn't that question belong on the grey?

And if you write a song about all this doesn't that belong on the black?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:55 AM on December 27, 2007

three blind mice wins the thread.
posted by localroger at 6:05 AM on December 27, 2007

First off, no need for the hyphen between "radio" and "activity".

OED cites:

1899 Nature Nov. 71/1 On the radio-activity induced by the Becquerel rays. 1900 P. KROPOTKIN in 19th Cent. Dec. 932 They communicate radio-activity.. to the surface of the bodies. 1902 Harper's Mag. Aug. 364/1 For days Professor Curie was unable to approach his electrometers.. owing to his acquired radio~activity. 1920 Discovery Apr. 122/1 This was the first discovery in the science which later became known as radio~activity. 1947 Sci. News V. 55 Between them, these three series of radioactive elements include the whole of the known natural sources of radioactivity. 1955 Sci. Amer. Aug. 35/1 Radioactivity is measured in curies: one curie is equal to the radioactivity from one gram of radium (37 billion atoms disintegrating per second). 1955 Bull. Atomic Scientists Sept. 253/1 Radioactivity can travel in the air over large distances, and its very nature and action are unknown and unfamiliar to most people. 1962 S. G. WALEY in A. Pirie Lens Metabolism Rel. Cataract 359 When the enzyme is treated with isotopically labelled iodoacetate.. and the enzyme is boiled, no radio-activity is released. 1969 Daily Tel. 23 Jan. 1/4 A small Swiss nuclear research and training reactor at Lucens was closed yesterday after developing a leak of radio-activity. 1978 L. DEIGHTON SS-GB xvi. 135 Do you know what radio-activity is?.. It's the emission of radiation from unstable atomic nuclei—alpha particles, nucleons, gamma rays, electrons and so on.

So no, no need for the hyphen, but no need to snark about it either.
posted by languagehat at 6:45 AM on December 27, 2007

Dry cleaning, or any other cleaning, removes the radioactive particles (particles of dirt, soot, ash or dust that have radioactive compounds in them) form the clothing or other objects. That's what the process of "cleaning" tends to do. However, it does nothing to stop the disintegration of atomic nuclei and release of high energy radiation.

Why would someone even ask that?
posted by c13 at 6:55 AM on December 27, 2007

So no, no need for the hyphen, but no need to snark about it either.

itym "deep, unexamined psychological need to snark about it" hth
posted by cortex at 7:16 AM on December 27, 2007

Dry cleaning killed the radioactivity
Dry cleaning killed the radioactivity

Put the blame on the USSR.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:33 AM on December 27, 2007

So, a better question would be, if I sift through enough waste from dry-cleaners, can I get enough radioactive material to build something big, stupid, and dangerous?

*covers plans with napkin*

I only ask out of curiosity.
posted by quin at 8:28 AM on December 27, 2007

Doesn't this question belong on the Green?

Doesn't that question belong on the grey?

And if you write a song about all this doesn't that belong on the black?

And if you make a website to sell CDs of that song, better keep it on the dark green-bluish page.
posted by bunnytricks at 8:59 AM on December 27, 2007

Why would someone even ask that?

Because people are, by and large, illiterate and uneducated peasants?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:21 AM on December 27, 2007 [2 favorites]

In soviet russ...nah, I got nothing.
posted by felix at 9:29 AM on December 27, 2007

In Soviet Russell, joke tells YOU wrong!
posted by cortex at 9:44 AM on December 27, 2007 [3 favorites]

Nice that she asks the question only *after* her husband has taken the stuff in to be dry-cleaned.

If this truly were a danger, she would have exposed half her neighborhood.
posted by Afroblanco at 11:37 AM on December 27, 2007

Looks like there's a self-linker in our midst.
posted by dhammond at 1:35 PM on December 27, 2007