| TL;DR: eating 1 kg of phosphogypsum each day yields 36 mSv/year. Conclusion: very very far from life-threatening ; nobody is going to die or get cancer because of this. Oh God. This is Fukushima radioactive waters all again. I'm pissed: global warming is serious, and nuclear is our best bet. We dont need this fear-mongering non sense. Anyway, let's get to the facts and see how radioactive and dangerous this thing actually is. Methodologie from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose, section "Source of radioactivity". Here is the data: 1. Central Florida phosphogypsum averages 26 pCi/g radium
2. Radium: 10**-7 Sv/Bq
This gives: 26 pCi/g radium * 3.7 * 10**10 Bq/Ci * 10**-7 Sv/Bq (radium) = 0.100 mSv per Kg of phosphogypsum
So, if someone eats 1 kg of phosphogypsum per day, that would be 0.100 * 365 = 36 mSv/year.Background dose is 5-10 mSv/year, a plane pilot or X-Ray machine operator gets around 25-50 mSv/year, an astronaut something like 500 mSv/year. So, eating 365 kg per year will yield a higher than background dose, but nothing dangerous. I mean, it's probably dangerous to eat so much of this chemical stuff, but not because of radioactivity. Sources: 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20150219224641/http://www1.fipr.state.fl.us/PhosphatePrimer/0/684AE64864D115FE85256F88007AC781
2. https://web.archive.org/web/20121026093251/https://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/docs/federal/520-1-88-020.pdf - Page 156 and following ; p175 for Radium
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum
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