Granite counter tops may nuke your food

July 26th, 2008 | Category: Kitchens, Green

While planning that coveted green kitchen redesign, you might want pay additional close attention to what kind of counter tops you choose. I know, all the design magazines out there show kitchens decked out with those easy-to-clean, indestructible granite counters — but there’s a catch. Aside from the extremely energy-intensive extraction and transportation process that that stone goes through on the way to your kitchen, it might additionally be radioactive. Seriously.

Experts maintain that its exceedingly rare to find a counter that poses any serious health risks. Still, with the ballooning popularity of the stone, and the many exotic locations that the stone is coming from, it’s

hard for anyone to keep track of which stones contain which levels of radioactive materials like uranium, thorium or even potassium. According to the EPA, they’ve been getting swarmed with questions about the safety of granite. They recommend taking action whether radon measurements exceed 4 picocuries, one woman’s counter top in New Jersey was emitting 100 picocuries — one of the more extreme cases.

[via Treehugger]

[Source] Josh Loposer

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