Interesting, but that did happen recently in Monterey, California. At Monterey High School, some kids were in a classroom & the roof came down. They found asbestos in this roof. But it was wet so they just said that the kids would be okay cause it was wet & probably wouldn’t get airborne. Yeah, right.
You should see the precautions they took when cleaning it up, everyone & everything, gas masks, etc. lol
I’m sure they were scared stiff of being sued into oblivion. It’s good to err on the side of caution, but the concern over asbestos sometimes approaches an irrational level. Sure, inhaling a few fibers might lead to illness down the road; walking outside in a thunderstorm may get you hit by lightning, too, but it’s not that common an occurrence. I wonder what the actuarial statistics are for coming down with an asbestos-related illness if you don’t work with it directly, or live with someone who does.
Fillet wrote:
Once I went into a Midas brake shop several years back to get new pads. I had nothing better to do so I hung around. I watched as they pulled my wheels, the guy left and came back in a disposable garment with a filtration mask and head cover. He pulled all of my pads and carefully tucked them into special environmental bags. He used a vaccuum to clean around the housings and wheels. Then he took all of the disposable garments and tucked them into an environmental bag and finished the brake job as usual. When I got my bill there was this line item that was for about 15 bucks labled “EPA”. “What’s this?” I asked. “That’s your EPA required disposal charge for handling your asbestos brake pads”, says the guy behind the desk. He claimed that the asbestos variety were no longer available in the US. The only adds I’ve seen for asbestos pads have all been from outside the US.