Asbestos

davitk

Didn't say it was. Just saying treat everything in this business as though it were toxic.

davitk

Before I head off this morning to work on an assbestis filled house thought I'd post a couple more fun facts:

Old black romex type wire sheathing often contains asbestos.

You have a higher exposure to airborne asbestos fibers standing on a street corner when a city bus slams on its brakes than most anyplace else.

Asbestos continues to be used in the manufacture of various products imported into this country, legally. Ever wonder who fills the gap when we run short on products such as drywall.....

hbelectric

I make everyone and myself were asbestos mask when entering an attic new or old house. All old houses we mask when drilling can light holes.
I'm not super careful, but i remove my cloths at the entry of my house and they are put directly into the washing machine. I never wear my work cloths into the house.

My concerns are not always about asbestos, I just like having clean lungs.
I do fear I have been exposed too asbestos though.

Jimmy0246

I'm also very careful when entering old houses about asbestos. A few years ago, however, my children were attending school and they were removing asbestos. But I saw that they did not have the standards that i wanted for this type of project. I immediately complained and soon the school took a few more precautions. I guess they thought that the lowest bidder for the job would also be the safest. They needed a lesson.

Stock

Asbestos case
The high-profile prosecution of chemical manufacturer W.R. Grace and three of its executives underscored the dangers that asbestos poses to workers, communities, and the environment.

After a hotly contested trial, a jury last month returned a not guilty verdict against W.R. Grace and three of its executives.
The company and executives had been charged with criminal conspiracy in a case involving asbestos contamination in Libby, Montana, where Grace had mined and processed vermiculite, a potting soil containing asbestos, between 1963 and 1990.
According to the U.S. prosecutor in the case, some 200 people in Libby, many of them former Grace employees, have already died from exposure to the asbestos. Another 1,000 to 2,000 reportedly are at risk of asbestos-related diseases.
The prosecutor told jurors that the risk of dying from asbestosis for Libby residents is 40 to 80 times the normal rate.
Not Off the Hook

Despite the acquittal on the conspiracy charge, Grace has already settled another lawsuit by the federal government brought under the Superfund act. Grace will pay out $250 million in cleanup costs to deal with asbestos contamination in Libby.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been overseeing the cleanup of the community for some time now at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Healthcare services have also been provided for ailing Libby residents.
According to EPA investigators, asbestos was spread through the town not only by mining and processing operations but also by workers who brought asbestos fibers home from work on their clothes and contaminated their houses, putting their families at risk of asbestos-related illness as well.
Some Libby residents also used vermiculite in their gardens, and vermiculite was used to cover the running tracks at the local school.


Stock
__________________
Common sense is not common practice

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Common sense is not common practice

bwalley

Asbestos is not used in brake pads anymore, that is one reason why brake pads don't last long, they squeal and your rims are always dirty.

Electric_Light

I'm surprised that the school district does not have a few industrial hygienists and an environmental health and safety program. They should have a program for asbestos and things like bloodbourne pathogens. If someone gets a nose bleed in the classroom, they better have a procedure for a clean-up. I think a follow-up with the district office is warranted.

Asbestos apparently don't cause immediate danger, long term risk is well documented and there are a lot of politics and legal complications that revolve around it, so they're a pain.

There are many asbestos lawyers looking for employees to sue their former employers.

They're regulated waste, so you can't just throw them out.

There maybe regulations about venting asbestos containing air outside. Some construction work I've seen on a college campus used a negative-pressure ventilation system so that dust does not escape the work area, then the exhaust was filtered through a HEPA filter before releasing to the atmosphere.