wrt radioactive materials, I was asked a similar question about a year back.
It depends. The ban is not a blanket ban on anything radioactive because that would be both ridiculous and impossible to police.
There is a well defined amount of radioactive material that must be managed and at higher levels again there are official processes...
So if you have a radioactive mineral specimen, check the regulations, it's almost certainly OK and does not even require labelling. If it's above a certain level of activity and enters the dangerous goods part of the transport act(s) there is paperwork involved. At some point when dealing with extremely radioactive materials like Terra-becquerel radioactive sources - the sorts of things that are stored in a block of lead in a shipping container that is surrounded by empty shipping containers - you're probably talking directly with government agencies and authorities...
Almost certainly the same with the other classes of material (with the exception of the cultural materials - different rules, no doubt).
The question isn't can I import mercury, it's how much and what form? Same with Asbestos - I have kg of the stuff in my collection.... just happens to be encased in silica... Asbestos isn't dangerous until it's in your lungs. The regulations are not aimed at minerals but manufactured goods etc.
Once tried to import a Periodic Table set of elements in tiny samples from UK. As soon as they heard it had to go to Australia they didn’t want to know, too much hassle.
wrt radioactive materials, I was asked a similar question about a year back.
It depends. The ban is not a blanket ban on anything radioactive because that would be both ridiculous and impossible to police.
There is a well defined amount of radioactive material that must be managed and at higher levels again there are official processes...
So if you have a radioactive mineral specimen, check the regulations, it's almost certainly OK and does not even require labelling. If it's above a certain level of activity and enters the dangerous goods part of the transport act(s) there is paperwork involved. At some point when dealing with extremely radioactive materials like Terra-becquerel radioactive sources - the sorts of things that are stored in a block of lead in a shipping container that is surrounded by empty shipping containers - you're probably talking directly with government agencies and authorities...
Almost certainly the same with the other classes of material (with the exception of the cultural materials - different rules, no doubt).
The question isn't can I import mercury, it's how much and what form? Same with Asbestos - I have kg of the stuff in my collection.... just happens to be encased in silica... Asbestos isn't dangerous until it's in your lungs. The regulations are not aimed at minerals but manufactured goods etc.
Once tried to import a Periodic Table set of elements in tiny samples from UK. As soon as they heard it had to go to Australia they didn’t want to know, too much hassle.
Most of my elements have come from European countries rather than the UK.