The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "scrap metal" ...
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Recycled Radiation
Radioactive materials are being found in common consumer items because radioactive devices used in manufacturing and medicine are often mixing with scrap metal for use in large varieties of other products. "Recycled Radiation" outlines the findings from the Nuclear Material Events Database.
Tags: radioactive; material; products; consumers; scrap; metal; recycled; exposure; manufacturing; medicine; Mexico; transport; oversight; disposal; waste;
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Tin Men
This story investigates corruption in Cleveland's scrap metal industry. It exposed the practice of looting vacant houses by "Tin Men" and the city's waste collection crews.
Tags: scrap metal; real estate; vacant houses; abandoned houses; Cleveland; waste disposal
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Fallout
SF Weekly reports on the Hunters Point Shipyard, which is being turned over to the city of San Francisco in 2002. The shipyard used to house the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, which handled -- or mishandled, as SF Weekly discovered -- "nearly every kind of radioactive material known to man." The investigation found that tons of radioactive materials had been dumped into San Francisco Bay, radioactive fuel had been burned, discharging its smoke into the atmosphere, radioactive scrap metal was sold to private companies and unsuitable radioactive containers were dumped at a site 30 miles from the city. At the time the series was published the Navy had promised to release a study of the site, but had not. Following the first two parts, the third part of Davis' "Fallout" series on radiological materials buried at Hunters Point, the San Francisco Navy shipyard. This installment shows that a supposedly exhaustive 634-page Navy report fails to tell the real history of radiation at the shipyard.
Tags: CD-ROM; U.S. Navy; Hunters Point Shipyard; Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory; radioactive dumping; pollution; hazardous waste; nuclear experiments; toxic materials; environment; clean-up San Francisco bay; veterans; Cold War
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High Life on a Scrap Heap: Gotti in-law Agnello is a Junkyard Midas
This New York Daily News investigation finds that "Carmine Agnello quietly built a $60 million empire in the New York City scrap industry by banking on his association with two powerful forces - the Gambino crime family and Caterpillar, one of the most recognized name in heavy machinery." The story reveals that Agnello is a "son-in-law" of jailed Gambino crime boss John Gotti" and "the feds say mob muscle is behind it all." The investigation has started with Agnello's arrest "on charges that he hired an associate to firebomb a competitor's business ... run by undercover New York City police officers."
Tags: scrap; Mafia; metal industry; shredding business; Caterpillar; Gambino family
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The Shipbreakers
In this in-depth article Langewiesche takes a look Alang, India, a small community at the center of a controversy that involves the shipping industry and the practice of dismantling old ships for scrap metal.
Tags: Environment; pollution; shipping industry; Alang; India
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Nuclear spoons
The Department of Energy has a problem: what to do with millions of tons of radioactive metal. Progressive finds that the DEO plans to let scrap companies collect the medal, try to take the radioactivity out and sell the metal to foundries. Ultimately, the metal could be used for everyday household products: pots, pans, forks, spoons, even your eyeglasses.
Tags: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Association of Radioactive Metal Recyclers
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No title (id: 8692)
Village Voice (New York) recounts the worst nuclear accident in North America in which a Mexican hospital's janitor has become a scapegoat for following his boss's orders in delivering radioactive junk metal to a scrap yard, where it was subsequently recycled, spreading lethal radiation throughout Mexico and the United States, June 16, 1992.
Tags: None
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No title (id: 2703)
Georgia Gazette (Savannah) article shows how Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation avoided paying more than $2 million a year in local taxes by claiming unfinished corporate jets under construction were worth no more than scrap metal, and were then taxed as such, Aug. 16, 1984.
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No title (id: 2616)
Science 84 publishes article on the worst radioactive spill in North America that took place in Juarez, Mexico, when workers mistakenly sold the radioactive core of a cancer therapy machine for scrap metal, December 1984.
Tags: West