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What is Depleted Uranium?


What is it?
How is it used?
DU in the Gulf War
DU in the Balkans
DU - Health Concerns

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Uranium is a weakly radioactive element that occurs naturally in the environment. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) for the Department of Health and Human Services estimates there are an average of 4 tons of uranium in the top foot of soil in every square mile of land. A heavy metal similar to tungsten and lead, uranium occurs in soils in typical concentrations of a few parts per million (equivalent to about half a teaspoon of uranium in a typical 8-cubic yard dump truck-load of dirt).

Each of us ingests and inhales natural uranium every day from our air, water, food, and soil. The amount varies depending on the amount found where you live, and where the food you eat and the water you drink are produced. Consequently, each of us has some uranium in our body, and we eliminate some in our urine every day.

Uranium in our Bodies

*Note: 1 microgram = 0.000000035 ounces

Depleted Uranium - This very dense metal (1.7 times as dense as lead) is a by-product of the process by which uranium is enriched to produce reactor fuel and nuclear weapons components. The leftover uranium, 40% less radioactive than natural uranium, is called "depleted uranium," or DU. The Department of Energy (DOE) recently reported that the DU it provided to DoD for manufacturing armor plates and munitions may contain trace levels (a few parts per billion ) of contaminants including neptunium, plutonium, americium, technitium-99 and uranium-236. From a radiological perspective, these contaminants in DU add less than one percent to the radioactivity of DU itself. Medical scientists consider this insignificant.