Here is the scenario. Suppose some people wanted to spend the night in an old abandoned school just for the experience, because, well, people usually don’t sleep in abandoned schools. This school’s ceiling is slowly crumbling, and I’m 100% sure that there is asbestos in the ceiling. Asbestos is a harmful mineral, but how harmful? Would spending the night there kill you? How long would you have to be prolonged to it to hurt you?
I want some intelligent answers. I don’t want anyone asking, “Now why would you want to stay in an abandoned school anyway?” “That’s a dumb idea.” and so on. This is an educational question that my one friend wanted to know the answer to.
when i worked as a carpenter, my boss told me that massive doses of asbestos is the problem- usually from chronic exposure. being around it for a little bit isn’t going to be a problem.
then again, maybe he was too cheap to buy masks. and come to think of it, i don’t remember him doing much of the work.
Hi, Welf. Well, inhalation to asbestos has been established as a cause of asbestosis, a respiratory disease, and mesothelioma, a HIGHLY LETHAL form of lung cancer.
The way you describe it I’d be more afraid of getting squashed when the roof caved in.
Unless you’re going to be beating the suspected asbestos
ceiling tiles with a weed wacker you’re in little if any danger. Asbestos damage to the lungs etc is usually a matter of degree of exposure to particulate asbestos fibers and unless the asbestos is friable and permeating the atmosphere you are breathing the danger is slight.
If the ceiling is crumbling and chunks of insulation are falling on the floor, asbestos fibers will be in the air and in a free state. ‘Friable’, as astro mentioned, is the correct term. One night won’t kill anyone unless the ceiling falls, but asbestos fibers are as small as 700 times smaller than a human hair and almost indestructible. The body can NEVER break down or eliminate whatever fibers they inhale.
As long as they understand that, I’d guess they can do whatever they like.
same boss also said that the most asbestos fibers that most people will ever come into contact with are from brake pads. supposedly, even if you spent all night and the next few days in the school, you won’t dose yourself half as much as when you breathe our wonderful city air. go figure.
Do you smoke? I’ve heard (although I can’t seem to find any sources at the moment ) that asbestos damage is much worse in people who smoke. Even so, one night isn’t going to hurt you. You could always take a portable HEPA filter with you
I agree with the consensus here. The asbestos fibers lodge deep in your lungs and irrate the lung tissue for the rest of your life. Perhaps a few fibers will be ok, but the more you breathe in, the more change there is of bigger, serious problems (asbestosis, cancer). The question is…is the asbestos friable (fibers being released to air), accessible, and damaged? The answer to all three seems to be yes – so you’d probably do yourself a favor by avoiding that place. If it’s an abandonned, boarded up building…the air has been stagnant for a while and when you enter, you’ll stir things up that have been sitting for years. On the other hand, it’s just one night, which is just a short-term exposure…usually it takes longer exposures to cause big problems.
No need to find some old school. Brake shoes are made of this material & you breath in tons just being near a street.
I don’t know if they have changed this stuff yet, but it’s been around in shoes for a long time.
Airborne asbestos will kill you, but you need long-term exposure to substantial quantities. Sleeping overnight in an old school with asbestor in the ceiling does not fall in that category.
I hate to be the dissenter here, but it’s really a matter of probabilities. One asbestos fiber can trigger a cancerous mutation and that mutation can spread through the lung tissue resulting in death. The good news is that, in all probability, a single asbestos fiber WON’T cause that chain reaction, but it’s incorrect to say that it CAN’T. The greater your exposure to airborne asbestos fibers, the greater your probability of developing cancer.
When you consider all of the probabilities, however you would probably find that your risk of being killed in a car wreck on your way to this abandoned school far outweighs your risk of asbestos poisioning from sleeping overnight. Still the risk is non zero.
BTW, brake pads are no longer made from asbestos (at least not those available in the US). Also, I’m not aware of any asbestos used in shoe manufacture…
Asbestos is a catch-all term for several minerals (including chrysotile and tremolite) with similar crystal forms. A number of other minerals (talc, wollastonite, and various micas) are sometimes referred to as “asbestiform,” and treated in government regs as though they pose the same health risks as asbestos minerals, although this is not clear for all the minerals involved. Because of its long, silky fibers, chrysotile could be woven into fireproof cloth; it was also used in brake linings, as a heat insulator for pipes & wiring, as siding on homes and in those delightful old institutional floor tiles you so often see in older schools. If it’s not friable, it poses no danger.
Everyone here who is telling you that one night’s stay should not pose a problem is correct, because long-term exposure to elevated quantities presents the greatest risk. Of course, if you survive the ceiling crashing in, you might inhale a large enough quantity to run into some health problems later.
The next time you’re in eastern Quebec, don’t miss the Asbestos Mine and Museum. The Wall Street Journal rated it one of the Five Worst Vacation Spots in the World.
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I had a physics/ceramics teacher who I absolutely respected and who I am sure knows the answer to everything on Earth tell me once that only one kind of asbestos can hurt you, and that is only mined in one place (somewhere in Northern California, I think), and that you breathe huge quantities of non-harmful asbestos that eminates from the mountains (or something like that) daily. Of course I passed this off as a result of his doing too many drugs in his youth, but could there be some truth to it?
I think that may be going a bit far in the other direction, and his thoughts may reflect old attitudes. He was probably thinking specifically of chrysotile, which tends to have long, flexible fibers that were thought to be especially effcient at hooking themselves into your lungs (in contrast to short straight fibers of other minerals like tremolite).
Yes, there is naturally-occurring asbestos that could become friable and find its way into the atmosphere. Chrysotile is found in a rock called serpentine, which is really a basalt (dark volcanic rock) that has undergone a low-temperature weathering process involving a lot of water flow through the rock. Basalts weathered into serpentine typically occur in geological settings that include slivers of ocean floor basalt emplaced on land during plate collisions.
I don’t know about Northern California in particular (is jrepka here?), but serpentine is not an uncommon rock at all - much of Staten Island in New York is composed of serpentine! So can you be exposed naturally? Yes, it’s possible. Are you likely to get sick from it? JoeyBlades has pointed out that it’s possible to get sick from a single fiber… but I think the probability of that happening is pretty low. Maybe someone can check if the incidence of asbestos-related illness is higher on Staten Island than would otherwise be expected.
What the hell is up with Physics teachers and drugs? Were all of them hippies??? Is it a requirement for employment. My high school physics teacher, and everyone I have ever heard of, was the biggest ex-hippy ever. He always talked about his protests and laying around naked, stoned out with friends under black lights… what a cool dude!! [/hijack]
JoeyBlades is correct – it is not a non-zero risk to be exposed. Is it a small risk? Yes. Does the risk increase with increased exposure? Definitely. But even when something is a one-in-a-million chance, it happens one time out of a million. Personally, I wouldn’t do it. But I’ve inhaled so much crap in my undergrad and grad school days as a ceramic engineer that I’ve probably got something brewing in my lungs already.
I think it’s more of a matter of whether the mineral is in it’s natural state or if it’s been processed (milled). Once processed, it’s a much smaller/finer particle (more hazardous/breathable).
) that asbestos damage is much worse in people who smoke. Even so, one night isn’t going to hurt you. You could always take a portable HEPA filter with you 