My son is going to receive 5,550 MBq of radioactive 131I and is being treated as an outpatient. He will be staying at our house, and we are on a septic system. Will the radiation affect the flora of the septic system? Will it have any effect on how our septic system functions?
There is not enough radioactivity in 5,550 MBq of 131I to kill the bacteria in your septic tank. The Environmental Protection Agency website lists the doses to kill bacteria for food irradiation. They range from 1 to 30 kilogray. That is an exceedingly high radiation dose. A colleague of mine did a calculation and came up with a potential dose of 0.15 mGy to the contents from the excreted 131I. Compared to 1,000,000 mGy, 0.15 mGy is tiny.
I think that you can feel safe that your septic tank will not be affected. Additionally, the 131I decays with a half-life of eight days so it decays to essentially nothing in two months.
Marcia Hartman, MS
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