Friday 19 / April / 2024
Muscat: The Royal Hospital, in cooperation with the Arab Lead Company, is implementing a project to recycle lead waste. It is the first-of-its-kind move in the Sultanate of Oman and at the regional level, and it is expected to open the door to similar successful experiments in the near future, and perhaps for more complex devices.
Dr Khalsa Zahran Al-Nabhani , Head of the Nuclear Medicine Department and the Molecular Imaging Centre at the Royal Hospital, said that the Department uses various amounts of radioactive materials for the purpose of diagnosis or treating diseases.
She added that the radioactive materials are kept in containers made of lead to protect the workers in the Nuclear Medicine Department from exposure to radiation, and after using the radioactive materials, the lead containers are turned into non-radioactive waste.
She stated that during the past years, large quantities of this waste had accumulated in the department's warehouse, which prompted the specialised team to think about how to dispose of it in a proper way and make use of it.
She pointed out that the specialised team in the department presented the idea of recycling and exploiting this waste and converting it into another form of lead aimed at manufacturing radiation protection materials for use in the Nuclear Medicine Department, in cooperation with the Arab Lead Company. She stated that work on the project began with the development of a clear action plan between the team and representatives from the Arab Lead Company. A cooperation agreement was signed between the hospital and the company in June last year.
She pointed out that the nuclear medicine team counted approximately 10,000 kilograms of lead container remnants accumulated from 2012 to 2020 in the radioactive material store at the Nuclear Medicine Department, and the radiation levels were measured by a medical physicist to ensure that they were free from radiation.
She added that personal radiation measuring devices were provided to the team dealing with these wastes, and lead containers were inventoried according to their type and weight by the same team.
In this aspect, the Arab Lead Company team was trained by the Nuclear Medicine Department team on how to safely deal with these wastes, especially Nuclear generators and how to dismantle them and separate the radiation source from them and then store it in a safe way and deliver it to the Nuclear Medicine Department.
She stated that the last danger was the transfer of lead containers to the Arab Lead Company in order to recycle them and manufacture radiation protection devices with international specifications and standards for use by the nuclear medicine department staff.
Dr Khalsa Zahran Al-Nabhani said that the company delivered the two mobile radiation protection devices as a first batch of materials manufactured for the department in April 2022, explaining that the cost of one mobile device is approximately OMR13,000.
