Are japanese products safe?

Question:

i just brought a pair of headphones from japan. and my parents are telling me to throw them out because of some nuclear thing that happened. they were really expensive though.

Answer:

The main concern is food from Japan. But products like headphones, which wont be put inside your body, are less of a concern.

The first thing you can do is check the packaging of your headphones. Does it say exactly where they were manufactured? Unless they were made in Fukushima (near the damaged reactor) you are probably perfectly safe. But even if they were made in another city, and traveled through Fukushima to get to the port (for example), the chances of that being enough exposure for the product to become contaminated are very slim. And even if some particles were deposited, they would mostly not be on the product itself, but on the outside of the packaging, which you can remove and throw away.

Anyway, the human body can withstand a little radiation. In fact, we are almost always exposed to natural radiation from rock, soil, water, air, and from space. That's not to mention human activities, like flying in planes, and getting medical scans.

But if you still want to be sure, then depending on your location, you could probably take your headphones to your local airport/hospital/university, and ask someone with a particle detector to take a few seconds and check your headphones for you.

Best of luck!