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Publisher Summary In a survey performed to estimate the presence of DU in regions where DU ammunition had been deployed, no clear evidence of its presence in the local environment or in the bodies of local inhabitants was observed, except in samples that came into direct or very close contact with DU penetrators. The activity ratios of particular interest ( 235 U to 238 U and 234 U to 238 U) in general tend to show typical values observed in the natural environment. The only environmental sample analyzed by alpha spectrometry to show an abnormal activity ratio suggesting the presence of DU was a piece of scrap metal covered with dust. This may have been an element of military equipment that had been fired at with DU armor-piercing ammunition. Samples of dust collected on air filters were too small to obtain conclusive results. Large volume air samplers should be used in the future to study the environmental pathways of DU over longer time periods.

Results of studies conducted during the nineties in Poland on plutonium in the environment are presented. Four laboratories were involved in the analyses of soils from different locations and types, including forest litter, peat, river and sea sediments, mosses, lichens, mushrooms, animal bones, aerosols from ground-level air, rain water, food products of the average diet, sea water and marine biota including fish. Samples were collected in the territory of Poland and in the Baltic Sea in the Polish economic zone. Ranges or only maximum observed activities are presented. The investigations were conducted mostly to estimate the influence of the Chernobyl accident on the present plutonium burden in the environment of Poland. The fallout pattern was reconstructed to study the plutonium inventory. The maximum inventory of global fallout plutonium was found in one sample of Baltic Sea sediment (314 Bq/m 2 ). The maximum inventory of Chernobyl fallout plutonium was found in the far north-east of Poland. It was 25 Bq/m 2 for plutonium alpha-emitters and 1.025 kBq/m 2 for 241 Pu. A difference in the behaviour of plutonium between global and Chernobyl fallout was noticed. The committed dose equivalent for a person exposed to Chemobyl-origin aerosols and to ingestion intake of plutonium from foodstuffs was calculated. The inhalation committed equivalent dose was estimated to be significantly higher than that from ingestion. However, both were considered low and did not exceed 0.1 mSv.