Old smoke alarms recycle ?

Hand them in to any fire-station (after the random bleeps annoy them for long enough they'll send them away for recycling).

Absolutely there is!

They are medium level nuclear watse. Or would be if they came from a nuclear power station.

Best simply put them in tbe bin

I took some to our local recycling centre and threw them into the general rubbish bin. A few minutes later I saw one of the staff hauling them out again. I assumed it was because of the radioactive source in them and they would be dealt with specially, but apparently they come under WEEE regulations, so chuck them in the 'small electrical items' skip.

If they are the ones based on radioactive isotopes I believe you need to be careful to make sure they get given to the right place. If they use some other technology then its normally the council electrical folk who send them for recycling. I remember there was a bit of a stink when people dumped their old dial trimfones. as the back lit figures were based on a beta lite ie a radioactive gas in a sealed tube with a phosphor which the beta particles stimulated and as the electron changed charge a pulse or photon was emitted giving that eerie light. Brian

REally? we here were told never to do so. Brian

IIRC they were originally designed to be suitable for landfill, your local tip *might* prefer them to go into the "electronics" bin.

They contain just under a microcurie of Americium 241. That gives over

Wouldn't recommend swallowing one, but you would need 70,000 to do a Litvinenko. Not actually any real threat in "dirty bombs" but I bet GCHQ are watching.

Quite a lot of old Trimphones were dumped in a skip on the Harwell site, which got them a fine.

An audio specialist once claimed that the distinctive "Warble tone" was perfectly optimised to make it difficult to locate.

it sounded exactly the same as a certain bird. Predictable results.

David Hahn had a use for smoke alarms, but I wouldn't recommend that. free.uk.diy.nuclear-device may have more info, this group doesn't really extend to nuclear diy. AFAIK!

The authorities make an exception for home radioactive smoke alarms, otherwise you need nuclear certification even to move one across the room.

NT

I think the problem was that certain birds mimicked it. Same effect, obviously, but it did depend on the morale and IQ of one's local birds.

They also got fined over a botched attemp to recover the silver from the radioactive sources in smoke detectors.