I'm in the abandoned city of Pripyat, in Ukraine. 3km away is the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,
which exploded in 1986. And "nuclear power plant" and "exploded" are never something
you want to hear in the same sentence. It caused the worst nuclear accident in humanity's
history. So I'm here, and I have brought a banana. For scale.
Because bananas are radioactive. They're a great source of potassium, and a tiny fraction
of that potassium -- about one part in 10,000 -- is an unstable, radioactive isotope. Every
second, a few hundred potassium atoms in this banana decay. Which is enough that a containerful
of bananas can cause false alarms at shipping docks where they're looking for radioactive
bombs. Bananas are called a "legitimate radioactive material".
So why are we still eating them? Well, that much radiation is basically nothing. There's
something called the banana equivalent dose: it's not a serious measurement, particularly
because your body regulates your potassium levels anyway and you'd just get rid of it,
but it's a good way to get an idea of how dangerous something is, and how dangerous
this city is.
If you just spend a night sleeping next to someone, anywhere on earth: you'll get half
a banana's dose. We've got potassium in us as well, so we're all very slightly radioactive.
Being here, in the city next to the world's worst nuclear accident? Three bananas an hour,
rising to twenty or thirty in a few areas. That sounds like a lot, until you realise
that the cosmic radiation I got on the airplane flight here was about a hundred bananas, or
about a chest x-ray.
The actual danger here in most parts of Pripyat and Chernobyl, is not from background radiation.
Nearer the plant, and in some less-travelled areas, yes; the workers who are building the
new confinement structure have very strict limits on how long they can linger. But the
danger here is from fallout, from material left behind in the 1986 explosion, it's from
the vegetation that's very good at pulling radioactive particles into itself, it's from
kicking up dust and breathing it in, it's from things getting into your system and staying
there. I'm not allowed to put any of my belongings down on the ground just in case they pick
up dust, and I'll be scanned for radiation when I leave, just in case. Radiation isn't
some terrifying spectre, if it's managed properly. If it's not: well, even now, nearly thirty
years after the Chernobyl disaster, everyone in Europe is still getting about an extra
twenty or thirty bananas of radiation every year.
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