No, they won't develop it the way I would.

 That's also not an option.

 I'll just mail it back.

Thanks,

Rich

The courier companies do handle radioactive materials, properly
packaged. They are declared as hazardous.  

When shipping film, I recall that on the shipping documents, you can ask
that it not be placed near radioactive material, and it will be handled
accordingly.  The courier services have procedures and appropriate
labels for the packages.

Every overnight carrier but DHL routinely carries shipments of radioactive
materials.  These shipments require specially designed containers and LOTS
of paperwork, but the reality is that the dose rate emanating from these
shipments can be significant to film if close enough.  The package doesn't
have to leak for radiation to emanate from the container.

The use of radioactive materials as tracers in nuclear medicine procedures
has become so common (my stress test used Technicium-99m, my bone scan used
Thallium-201) that the odds are that the FedEx/UPS/Airborne/motor carrier
truck next to you at the traffic light has a shipment on it.  These
radioisotopes are very short-lived (that's why they are used for the tests)
and have to be replaced at every nuclear medicine clinic everywhere in the
coountry just about every day.  That's 21st century medicine, folks.

While these shipments are commonplace, they only present a problem to
radiation-sensitive material (can anyone think of any?) in close proximity
to the rad material shipment.

The worst case scenario is a shipment on Thursday that doesn't get delivered
Friday and therefore sits in the carrier's warehouse over weekend next to a
rad shipment.  Most carriers now segregate the rad shipments to a specific
section of the warehouse, not to protect my film but to control exposure of
warehouse employees.  Many allow the shipper to identify a shipment as
radiation sensitive with the promise to keep that shipment away from rad
materials, but I know of quite few cases where that didn't seem to happen,
including shipments of my own.

My lab ships radiation-sensitive materials to various places mostly in the
US but some in Europe and the Pacific 30-40 times a year.  These go by
overnight carrier where the kind of x-ray used for passenger aircraft are
not used.  We measure radiation exposure in about a half dozen shipments a
year, the most recent being last week.  However, just because we can measure
it doesn't mean it's harmful.  The levels we've detected wouldn't fog film.
But I know others in my profession who have honest-to-Pete horror stories
about some of their shipments being irradiated in transit.  It's rare that a
significant exposure happens, but it happens.

Having said all that (anyone still reading?), I bring my film home with me
on the plane.  Never put it in your checked luggage - the CT scan will most
definately ruin it.  But I've never seen a visible effect from the gate
security x-ray machines.

Bob in Las Vegas