[dekhn]

A lot of us grew up in the time of 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl. Combined with a lot of media about radioactivity's dangers (https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/06/nyregion/babies-teeth-and...). I think that has strongly affected people's perception of risk.

I used to work at UC Berkeley, and one of the buildings on campus previously held a research nuclear reactor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Research_Reactor). There's a sign there now "Nuclear Free Zone"; (https://www.dailycal.org/archives/the-berkeley-nuclear-free-...).

Note that they did have to do extensive decontamination on Gilman Hall (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formerly_Utilized_Sites_Remedi...) where plutonium was first isolated.

[skeaker]

I think for the general population we also have The Simpsons to blame. Ask anyone on the street what "nuclear waste" actually is and I'd wager at least half would say "a barrel with glowing green goo leaking out of it."

[dekhn]

Which is funny, because everybody knows that's toxic waste (see Toxic Avenger from the 1980s).