Is nuclear fallout same as radiation?

Answer 1

No, nuclear waste and radioactive waste are not supposed to be synonymous, even if the media attempts to show them in the same light. See these from the NRC's website. Radioactive waste is a grouping containing low level waste, something which could be harmful to humans more in theory (as in contaminated shoe covers), and high level waste, which (is nuclear waste, reprocessed waste, and other things) will easily kill you. Nuclear waste is a sub-group of Radioactive waste. So a truck spill of radioactive waste on a high-way might just be spent latex doctors gloves.

= Low-Level Waste = Low-level waste includes items that have become contaminated with radioactive material or have become radioactive through exposure to neutron radiation. This waste typically consists of contaminated protective shoe covers and clothing, wiping rags, mops, filters, reactor water treatment residues, equipments and tools, luminous dials, medical tubes, swabs, injection needles, syringes, and laboratory animal carcasses and tissues. The radioactivity can range from just above background levels found in nature to very highly radioactive in certain cases such as parts from inside the reactor vessel in a nuclear power plant. Low-level waste is typically stored on-site by licensees, either until it has decayed away and can be disposed of as ordinary trash, or until amounts are large enough for shipment to a low-level waste disposal site in containers approved by the Department of Transportation.

= High-Level Waste = High-level radioactive wastes are the highly radioactive materials produced as a byproduct of the reactions that occur inside nuclear reactors. High-level wastes take one of two forms: * Spent (used) reactor fuel when it is accepted for disposal * Waste materials remaining after spent fuel is reprocessed Spent nuclear fuel is used fuel from a reactor that is no longer efficient in creating electricity, because its fission process has slowed. However, it is still thermally hot, highly radioactive, and potentially harmful. Until a permanent disposal repository for spent nuclear fuel is built, licensees must safely store this fuel at their reactors. Reprocessing extracts isotopes from spent fuel that can be used again as reactor fuel. Commercial reprocessing is currently not practiced in the United States, although it has been allowed in the past. However, significant quantities of high-level radioactive waste are produced by the defense reprocessing programs at Department of Energy (DOE) facilities, such as Hanford, Washington, and Savannah River, South Carolina, and by commercial reprocessing operations at West Valley, New York. These wastes, which are generally managed by DOE, are not regulated by NRC. However they must be included in any high-level radioactive waste disposal plans, along with all high-level waste from spent reactor fuel. Because of their highly radioactive fission products, high-level waste and spent fuel must be handled and stored with care. Since the only way radioactive waste finally becomes harmless is through decay, which for high-level wastes can take hundreds of thousands of years, the wastes must be stored and finally disposed of in a way that provides adequate protection of the public for a very long time.

Answer 2

Same, no. Similar, yes.

Radiation is fallout when it gets away from where it should be and disperses to someplace else where we don't want it.

And please remember that most radioactive "fallout" is mostly very safe. If you get it on you, you'll need to wash it off. It's only when certain forms of fallout become inhaled into the lungs that we have a real problem,

Answer 3

Toxic Waste is only one kind of hazardous waste.