[est31]

I'm not sure about some of the the claims of the Wikipedia article.

* First, the article implies that air continues to be the main reason for contamination of steel. It might have been the case, back when atmospheric levels for radioactive elements were higher. However now there is less contamination in the air [0], and the main source for contamination is recycled steel. Either because it itself is non-low-background steel or because e.g. medical radioactive sources were put into the scrap metal supply. See also this IAEA report on scrap metal [1].

* The article also says that the primary source for low background steel are shipwrecks, but I think that's an exaggeration. Especially, the topic came up on hn a few weeks ago and someone in the know debunked it [2].

[0]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Radiocar...

[1]: http://web.archive.org/web/20111016193221/http://www.iaea.or...

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23666436

[rossdavidh]

You should update the Wikipedia article. I mean, you've already got the references.