&gt; the average person would be more exposed to radioactivity from walking by fly ash (in a pond, in a pile, in the air, wherever it is) than from shielded waste.<p>This is wrong because your shielding is radioactive. Concrete is radio active, dirt is radio active, fly ash is radio active. Your granite counter top is radio active.<p>Fly ash sitting in a landfill has zero radio-logical hazard. Because there isn&#x27;t anything about it that will increase the local back ground radiation level. And because the radio-isotopes have a zero risk profile.<p>That same cannot be said for nuclear waste.<p>That is why the original statement is grossly misleading. And why it pops up again and again like bad penny.