From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishradioactivera‧di‧o‧ac‧tive /ˌreɪdiəʊˈæktɪv◂ $ -dioʊ-/ ●○○ adjective HCa radioactive substance is dangerous because it contains radiation (=a form of energy that can harm living things) the problem of how to dispose of radioactive waste a consignment of highly radioactive plutonium
Examples from the Corpus
radioactive• One becquerel is equal to one radioactive decay per second.• radioactive decay• But potassium itself is one of the most important radioactive heat sources in the planets.• These elements are major sources of radioactive heating.• a highly radioactive material• Originally this means of disposal was performed as an experiment to assess what happened to the radioactive material.• But it has its very own radioactive quality, a kind of nuclear winter of the soul.• The agency ruled Thursday that the repository in salt beds near Carlsbadabout 300 miles southeast of Albuquerquecould safely contain radioactive waste.• This was the thorny question of what would happen eventually to the reactor's residue of radioactive waste.radioactive waste• Both radioactive fission products and induced radioactivity in structural materials contribute to the problem of radioactive waste.• Britain is one of the world's largest importers of radioactive waste.• These secretive facilities house the deadly legacies of the Cold War: nuclear weapons, radioactive waste and toxic chemicals.• Finding ways of soothing political opposition to the dumping of highly radioactive waste could prove more difficult than solving the scientific problems.• In general, how-ever, these problems pale to insignificance compared to the problem of radioactive waste disposal.• Around half the country's radioactive waste is stored there.• The process produces a much smaller volume of chemically inert radioactive waste than conventional ion exchange techniques.• The kind of radioactive waste they are handling out there is the most dangerous kind. 