Good laboratory hygiene is essential to basic radiation safety, and is at the core of most all of the protection principles. Each laboratory should be a clean, safe work environment that ensures that there will be no cross contamination of surfaces, equipment, or personnel.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) prevents radioactive contamination of skin, eyes and clothing and must always be worn while handling radioactive materials.
Proper eye protection, lab coat, and gloves are required. Long pants must be worn. No open toed shoes are allowed. Although not necessarily a protective measure, your dosimeter must also be worn on the upper body. Appropriate gloves must be chosen for the compounds and work performed. In most cases, double latex gloves are adequate. However, you must use an outer non-permeable glove if working with compounds that have potential to permeate like NaI, CO2, H2O, etc. Extra protection is afforded by choosing a thicker glove with longer cuffs extending over the wrists.
Gloves should be placed in the waste collection and never worn outside the laboratory in public areas. You should always make a habit of washing your hands before exiting the lab.
Radioactive workstations should be outlined with; "Caution Radioactive Materials" tape. In many cases, the lab can designate a separate space or room for radioactive work. In either case, it is best to choose a corner of the laboratory that is less frequented by personnel. As a further precaution, always make it a habit to frisk survey yourself upon exit from the work area.
The floors of the work area should be monitored using a portable survey instrument each day radioactive materials are used. Workstations on the bench top should have absorbent paper with non-permeable backing, and a plastic or stainless steel spill tray with absorbent paper in the tray. Separate enclosures also can help designate the radioactive work area. Designating your certified fume hood as a radioactive workstation can help, however, using the fume hood is not required unless necessary to control effluent of aerosols or volatiles. Pipetting should always be done above absorbent in the work tray. Filtered pipette tips will help prevent contamination of your pipette, especially for aliquots from the stock vial.
A holding rack and lid opener for micro tubes can greatly help prevent contamination of your gloves. Also, a simple choice of the lid seal type for your micro tubes will help, often at no additional cost, especially if you have to agitate, homogenize, or vortex. Ideally, no vessel of radioactive material should leave the spill tray unsealed. Always seal each vessel before it leaves the base of the tray and place into a secondary container for carrying. Anything in contact with the tray absorbent paper should be treated as potentially contaminated, including ice pails, shields, pipettes, plexi™ containers, pico-fuges, etc. The absorbent paper and items that contact the tray should be surveyed as they leave the tray. You should always clean the workstation when you are done and perform a final survey.
Placement and storage of radioactive materials must be uncluttered and organized. Fume hoods should not be used for storage of waste containers since this hinders the airflow in the fume hood (with the exception if it is required for volatile forms). In most cases, the storage cabinet below the fume hood can be used if it is a volatile form, so long as it is compatible with the other containers. Most other waste containers, like dry solids, aqueous, and scint vial trays can best be organized in a cabinet on absorbent paper. Larger plexi boxes or collection buckets should be stored under the bench top out of the way from walkways.
To prevent internal contamination, absolutely no food, drink, chewing gum, chewing tobacco, smoking, or applying cosmetics is allowed in areas authorized for radioactive materials. As a campus policy, food and drink is not allowed in any laboratory. While this may seem to be common sense, this has been a recurring item of concern on previous inspections. Brewing coffee, warming in microwaves, or food and beverages in cold storage will not be tolerated in areas where radioactive materials are used or stored.
