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And the (tiny) problem of smashing the battery open by mistake and releasing enough radio-elements in the environment to poison your entire neighborhood for decades doesn't bother you?

Depends on the design. A thero-electric battery (e.g. Pielter or micro-Sterling) could easily be encased in a steel cladding that would prevent the materials from ever being released short of being heated to a molten state. This probably wouldn't work for beta-voltaics, but a strongly sealed battery would achieve the same effect.

Did you know people with pacemakers who die are cut open to recover the darn thing before they're buried, to avoid exactly what I just described, on a much smaller scale?

Did you know you have this wrong? The pacemakers are recovered to be refurbished and reused. Plutonium is very expensive, so Pace Maker receipients were required to sign a contract that allowed the device to be retrieved after death. AFAIK, there are no concerns about contamination due to the fact that the pacemaker casing would easily outlast the life of the plutonium power source. Linky

uhhhmmmm..... :)

At that time, at least in the US, radioluminescent paint saw little application. It stayed in the bottle. But in Europe, especially Switzerland, things were different. Quoting Ross Mullner "there were so many radium painters in that country that it was common to recognize them on the streets even on the darkest nights because of the glow around them: their hair sparkled almost like a halo."

A dead zone? A nature preserve is more like it. Since the place was irradiated and people don't go there anymore, the place is turning into a forest. Sure, the animals and plants are irradiated and that will shorten their lifespan and cause cancer, etc. Well, if people were still there most wouldn't even be living there. I wouldn't be surprised to see people living there again in 30 years once the more dangerous short half-lived elements decay. Just like in Hiroshima.

People go to spas for health reasons, yet spas are usually pretty radioactive.

Regarding Pu toxicity, I quote:

The latent effect of exposure to 239Pu was the subject of a Los Alamos National Laboratory study. This paper provides an update to an ongoing study of the health of a group of 26 young males who worked on the Manhattan Engineer District's Project at Los Alamos in 1944 and 1945. During this time, these men experienced significant contamination of 239Pu. Of the 26, 21 had left Los Alamos by 1946, one left in 1948, and none had significant additional plutonium exposure after 1945. Exposure was primarily by inhalation, though some also were exposed through cuts in the skin. The internal plutonium deposition ranged from 50 to 3,180 Bq and the effective dose ranged from 0.1 to 7.2 Sv. The median deposition and dose were 565 Bq and 1.25 Sv, respectively. The mortality of this group was compared to the mortality of U.S. white males. The standardized mortality ratio (STR), calculated by comparing the mortality of the subject group to the U.S. white male population, indicates that the exposed Los Alamos group experienced statistically significant fewer cancers and longer lives. Since this may be due to the education level of the Los Alamos group (these 26 had attained a higher level of education than the average U.S. male and this generally correlates with a healthier life style), they were also compared with a population of unexposed Los Alamos workers with comparable hire dates and general education levels. This comparison indicates that the general mortality, as well as cancer-induced mortality, of the two groups were statistically similar. Thus, the exposure of these 26 men to 239Pu did not significantly affect their health over their lifetimes.

So yes, Pu is dangerous (what isn't?), yes it should be carefully handled, but I still find it funny that some people think we should outright ban it, while its sitting in containers at special facilities, while cheerfully getting injected with Botox (botulism toxin) to remove a wrinkle...

Except it's a lot easier to eat a few crackers than to undergo surgery to replace a battery.

You know, they used to use Plutonium to prevent this sort of problem. It was only after the whole Chernobyl scare that companies stopped producing pacemakers with long-life power sources. Sometimes I wonder how much of our technological "progression" is nothing more than an illusion.

Brazil Nuts are naturally high in barium (0.3% by weight) and radium -- making it one of the most radioactive foods.

I wonder if plants can be used to extract waste pharmaceuticals out of the ground, too, such as destruxol and THC.