My Attempt to Import Tritium Key Chains

The item shown bellow is a tritium-containing radiolumonescent key chain.  It’s basically a small glass vial containing radioactive tritium gas and coated with a phosphorescent compound and placed in a clear plastic case.   Tritium is a weak beta emitter with a half life of 12.3 years.  Because the beta particles are very low in energy, they are entirely blocked by the glass and are not detectable on the surface of the key chain.  The beta particles ionize the phosphorescent compound and produce a steady glow, most often in green (the brightest and most visible color) but also available in other colors.  Because of the 12.3 year half life of tritium, these key chains can be used for several years before there’s any noticeable reduction in brightness.

They’re really great little items and the perfect gift for just about any occasion.   For one thing, they’re an interesting conversation piece and a very good example of a practical application of radioactivity.   They demonstrate that you can indeed keep something radioactive in our pocket and be quite safe and they’re very eye-catching.

They also have quite a bit of practical value.  Finding your keys in the dark is very easy with one of these key chains.  In fact, it’s so easy that if you happen to misplace your keys, the easiest way to find them is to turn off the lights.  When entering your home or starting your car in complete darkness, the glowing key chain provides just enough light to easily select the correct key and use it without fumbling.   If you happen to drop the keys on the dark floor of your car, you can find them very quickly and without effort.   You can even see the glow of the keys if they are under a seat or somehow otherwise obscured from direct view.  You can get different colors and use them to mark different key chains, making it very easy to grab the correct one, even in complete darkness.

I’ve had these key chains before (and broken a couple by mistake).  I can attest to just how useful they are.   There’s also no other way of getting this same value without using radioactive material.  An electrically illuminated key chain could not provide such continuous periods of glow without the batteries quickly running out.   Standard phosphorescent glowing items are limited to a few hours of illumination and must be exposed to light first in order to glow, making them useless for something like a key chain, which is often kept in one’s pocket.

There’s only one problem with these amazing little glowing key chains:  nobody in the US sells them, at least not directly.   Technically, these are not approved for sale or ownership in the United States, although I’ve never heard of anyone getting in trouble for owning one.  Many people do own them and talk about them openly online and elsewhere.  It might just be one of those things that hasn’t shown up on the radar of a bureaucrat who was asinine enough to bother to do something about it.

Still, there are stories about their thugs stopping sales of these key chains on sites like eBay.  It seems that these days most of those sold on eBay are coming from sellers who are not located within the United States.  Exactly how much trouble you could potentially get in for these remains unclear, but it appears to be a case of selective enforcement.  (So if you have one, don’t ever leave the federal government looking for an excuse to call you a terrorist.)

Yet while the government may tolerate people owning them, you can’t buy them from any major retailer.   They can be purchased on the “grey market,” imported in relatively small batches or sold over the internet.  They can be bought from foreign retailers, like those in the UK, who will generally ship to the US without problem.   The best place to buy them, however, tends to be eBay, where numerous sellers will sell to US customers.

That, however, was not good enough for me.  I know a great product when I see one and these things are inexpensive, extremely useful and very easy to sell.  I had bought one and people were constantly asking me about it and where to get one.   I wanted to sell these, and not just by keeping it on the down-low, selling them on auction websites or to friends.  I wanted to really sell them, importing them wholesale and selling them openly and in quantity.

I also didn’t want even the slight potential to have the NRC knocking at my door, which does occasionally happen when someone tries to sell them in the US.   One would think that the government has better things to do, but of course, they don’t.

I thought it would be easy to do.  After all, these things are very readily available in other countries, and by “other countries,” I don’t mean just Russia, Zimbabwe and Cuba.  They can be bought in the UK.  They are brought into the US all the time.  They’re also perfectly safe.   Of course, I assumed wrong, but this was a few years ago, long before I had gained a full understanding of the bureaucracy that is the NRC.

I e-mailed, called and faxed the NRC several times about this matter.  I cannot even begin to explain how difficult they were.   First, nobody at the agency seemed to understand what I wanted to do or what the devices were for.  They told me that if I wanted to start the process of getting a consumer product containing radioactive material approved, I could get some paperwork to start the ball rolling, but it would be several thousand dollars just to begin and would take more than a year.  I told them I believed the items qualified as being license-exempt, since other items of comparable function and contents, such as illuminated watches are.   They didn’t seem to understand what I was getting at.

After bouncing around many times between different individuals and sub-departments, before I eventually got the answer:  No, I could not import the key chains and no I could not sell them and nobody was really supposed to have them at all.   They never would tell me why the answer was no.  I was not told what exact regulation or requirement they violated.  They never would give me a straight answer about whether I could appeal that decision, who had made it or on what grounds and whether there was any way of having it reevaluated.  The best they could give me was that I could try the expensive process of getting a new product approved, but they also warned me that to do that I first had to have some prototypes of the product to have inspected and it would be illegal for me to have those prototypes unless I first got yet another license, permitting me to possess otherwise illegal amounts of tritium.

So the next place I went was the Health Physics Society.   They managed to put me in touch with some radiation safety experts who had worked with the NRC and knew the right people to ask.   After several false starts, they did manage to track down an NRC official who would go on record and explain the policy.   This is the e-mail I eventually got:

In response to your electronic mail dated October 23, 2007, concerning
keyrings containing tritium, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has
determined that a license is required to distribute products similar to
the Traser “glowring” key chains.  Although the devices are allowed in
the United Kingdom, they are not licensed here.  NRC regulations [10 CFR
30.19(c) and 10 CFR 32.22(b)] and policy (Federal Register Notice of
March 16, 1965, 30 FR 3462) do not allow licensing toys, novelties,
adornments or any consumer product containing radioactive material
considered a frivolous use of radioactive material and where the end use
of the product cannot be reasonably foreseen.   Other consumer products
that are not frivolous use, but contain self-luminous radioactive
material, must go through a two step safety review process consisting
of:  (1) an engineering evaluation and registration for the device as
well as (2) a licensing review of the program involved in possession and
distribution of radioactive material.

In order for NRC to be sure consumer products containing radioactive
material are safe for distribution to the general public the product
must be below a certain activity and/or found to incorporate engineering
features making release of the radioactive material unlikely.  In
addition environmental studies must show that during the products life
from manufacture to disposal, no adverse impact will be caused on the
environment or on those who may come in contact with the radioactive
material.  Traser Glowrings contain about 400 millicuries of tritium as
indicated by the UK manufacturer.  In comparison, a tritium wristwatch
typically contains 5 millicuries of tritium.  Tritium produces beta
radiation that cannot penetrate the skin, however, tritium can be
absorbed through the skin.  Tritium can also be an internal hazard
through inhalation and ingestion, as well as being absorbed through the
skin.

Again, Traser glowrings, and similar products, are not legal to own or
possess in the U. S. without a Federal and/or State license.

So that’s the big problem?   It’s an adornment or a novelty and therefore frivolous?

My Response:

• The fact that an item may be used as a novelty, adornment or toy does not mean it is “frivolous.”  The definition of “frivolous” is “irresponsible, lacking due consideration, without due consideration, improper.”  I think I can see what they’re getting at.  They want any item that is considered radioactive to have a legitimate use and consider entertainment or novelty to not be legitimate.  I have to disagree on that.   It’s fine to use something for such purposes if there’s negligible risk involved.
• The end use of the product can be reasonably forseen: people will put it on their key chain and use it to help locate their keys.
• At least part of the appeal of glowing key chains may indeed be their novelty and fashion aspect, but the same can be said of a tritium-containing wristwatch.   Watches are absolutely and undeniably fashion accessories, in addition to being functional timepieces.  In the cases of watches, the fact that they have a tritium-illuminated dial is often a selling point because of the fact that it’s fashionable in and of itself.   It’s not the only way to illuminate a watch dial.  It can be done with an electroluminescent face or with long lasting phosphorescent material.
• Radiolumonescent key chains are not only fashionable or novel, but also are practical.  They are at least as functional as radiolumonescent watches.  It makes it very easy to find misplaced keys simply by turning off the lights in a room.  The glow of the keychain is obvious in the dark even at a distance.   The glow can even be seen if the keys are partially obscured, such as being under a desk or bed.  The glow of the keychain also provides just enough light to aid a person handling the keys in the complete darkness, making it easier to select the right key for insertion into a lock or automobile ignition.
• While the amount of tritium in a key chain may be greater than that found in most watches, it is still trivial and is less than that found in numerous other commonly available items that can be purchased by the general public.  These include radiolumonescent compasses, small self-powered flashlight-style illuminators, self-illuminating map readers and other luminous items.   These devices are perfectly safe and do not pose any hazard to public health or the environment.  The amount of tritium present is far too low to pose a significant radiation hazard to anyone, even in the wost case scenario, where it might all be released in a confined area.
• Key chains of this style are already available in numerous countries around the world.  They have been sold for years without incident.   They are so common that it’s impossible to keep them out of the United States and there’s no legitimate reason to try anyway.  They’re safe and proven safe and their existence in no way enables terrorists, compromises public safety or constitutes a hazard.

I am willing to acknowledge that there may be legitimate reason for the NRC to require that the product undergo some kind of review, as they state, an engineering evaluation of the product.   Hopefully that would not include an environmental study, because that would be pretty ridiculous to do a study from scratch when there are already products of a similar nature being sold and which would release an equal amount of tritium upon disposal.  I’m not sure why they can’t just use a general purpose tritium device disposal study.  Although knowing the agency, it’s entirely plausible that they will require a completely new study. They could simply apply the same standard for release into the environment as any number of products with the same amount of tritium.  The danger presented is zero, at least if they are evaluated fairly and reasonably.

There are many exit  signs sold in the US which have much more tritium in them than one of these and the tritium is stored in tubes of almost exactly the same type.  Tritium-containing self-luminous exit signs may contain upwards of 40 curies of tritium, one hundred times the amount of tritium in one of these key chains.   It should be noted that these exit signs are subject to some special restrictions.  Those who purchase them are technically also purchasing an individual license for the sign, which requires that they do not tamper with the sign or open it and that they dispose of it properly, usually by returning it to the manufacturer.   Yet this certainly does not always happen.  Despite the requirement, thousands of tritium-containing exit signs of various ages (and therefore with various amounts of tritium present) end up in landfills and incinerators every year.  Despite this, the sky has not yet begun to fall.

I would be more than willing to consider undertaking the necessary engineering review, although I’m sure it would be long and expensive.   The products would almost certainly pass it.  They’re very straight forward and the manufacturer can provide any data necessary.  If an environmental study were also necessary, it still might be worth perusing.

The problem is that even if the manufacturer and distributors were willing to go through that process, the NRC has already decided the key chains are “frivolous” and therefore won’t even entertain the notion of approving them.   So it is simply impossible and they seem to not have the slightest willingness to revisit the decision.  DAMN!

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