Practical aspects of the environmental behavior of plutonium

The plutonium to be found in the environment and in man all over the world mainly originates from fallout from tests of nuclear devices. In spite of the thousand kilogramme of plutonium distributed over the world's surface, the amounts found in plants and animals contributing to human food are very low: for instance, they are below the maximum permissible concentrations for populations by several orders of magnitude. The numerous data quoted from the literature show that plutonium transfers from the environment to man - through the food chain at least - are low both in absolute and relative values as compared with other radionuclides