What devices contain radioactive material?

Answer 1

There are no products that contain radioactive waste, except (perhaps) one. All the products that contain radioactive materials have the material specifically made for the application to which they are being put. In general, radioactive waste is stuff that is either too hazardous to reprocess or is just "unusable" in its current form and is far from cost effective to process or refine to make a usable product.

About the only exception to this "rule" is depleted uranium, which is used to make the kinetic energy "spear" in modern heavy armor defeating ammunition used by tanks. Depleted uranium is uranium from which the U-235 isotope has been removed during a process called enrichment. The U-235, you'll recall, is used to make nuclear fuel (and possibly a nuclear weapon, though the modern nuclear powers generally use plutonium for that purpose). The radioactive "waste" from this process consists mostly of U-238, which, while radioactively, is only mildly so.

There are a number of products that contain radioactive material, and we commonly encounter the ionizing smoke detector, which contains synthetically produced americium. There are also a fairly wide variety of radioactive materials made for applications in medicine. Some are used as radioactive sources for different types of scans (imaging), and some are used to supply ionizing energy to treat lymphoma. All of these products are manufactured to control the type and amount of radioactivity present. There are also cobalt gamma ray sources made to provide ionizing energy for applications in something like the X-ray inspection of pipe welds. Another cobalt gamma source could be set up to sterililze something like adhesive bandages (band aids) and other medical dressings because heat cannot be applied to the products.

The reprocessing of radioactive waste is a difficult, dangerous and expensive activity. The goal of those who deal with anyradioactive materials is to produce the absolute miniumum of radioactive waste. In general, it's just too hazardous and costly to do much with it except store it.