From everything I’ve read about it, it is a known carcinogenic.
Not everyone who has been exposed to asbestos gets mesothelioma, but everyone who has mesothelioma has been exposed to asbestos.
If it’s such a known danger, why is it still allowed?
Asbestos has been replaced in almost every application, except for those for which there are no effective substitutes. Can you name a current product that uses asbestos?
i don’t think it’s really allowed at all anymore.
I remember sophmore/junior year in high school, they were redoing the auditorium for new lighting or something (this was 98-99ish), and when they drilled holes into the ceiling the asbestos tested way too high for current restrictions. Wound up costing tens/hundreds of thousands more than projected cause they had to remove the asbestos for the installation to fit the law/restriction.
From Wiki (U.S. restrictions) Link
*United States
In 1989 the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule which was subsequently overturned in the case of Corrosion Proof Fittings v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1991. This ruling leaves many consumer products that can still legally contain trace amounts of asbestos. For a clarification of products which legally contain asbestos read the EPA’s clarification statement.[44]
The EPA has proposed a concentration limit of seven million fibers per liter of drinking water for long fibers (lengths greater than or equal to 5 µm). The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), has set limits of 100,000 fibers with lengths greater than or equal to 5 µm per cubic meter of workplace air for 8-hour shifts and 40-hour work weeks.[45]*
If you’re in an undeveloped country, I suppose asbestos might not be banned, assuming the flame-resistance outweighs the chance you might develop cancer by age 50-60.
It doesn’t have to be an undeveloped country. They were removing asbestos from buildings in Japan, including schools, as recently as a year or two ago.
They’re still in the process of removing the asbestos from ESTEC, in the Netherlands, and it won’t be done for months. They’re not required to under Dutch law, but have voluntarily decided it’s a good idea. It’s been going on for about 4 years, and was scheduled to be done in 2008.
The Rotterdam Convention covers the labeling and importation rules for hazardous chemicals, including asbestos, but individuals states party are free not to completely ban the listed chemicals.
There are more than one form of asbestos, it seems, and Canada (which still mines asbestos) recently caught some scorn for opposing the inclusion of a particular type into the Convention’s list. The main importers of asbestos also opposed it, of course.
From that article:
One surprising fact about asbestos I recently discovered is that back in the 1920,s the (American) Prudential Insurance Company was already aware of the dangers of this stuff and very reluctant to insure anyone who worked with it. Why this information did not get more publicity at the time is a mystery to me.
Asbestos? I still play with it from time to time. Never said I was smart.
Here’s a pic:
I’ve just got back from inspecting 32 coal power plants in the US in a marathon multi-week trip, and saw enough asbestos to fill a football stadium. Asbestos is not so much a danger unless it’s disturbed and becomes suspended in the air, and as long as you know where it is, you can avoid disturbing it or at a minimum take precautions when you disturb it.
From what I saw, the cost of asbestos removal and replacement at those power plants would probably be so high that the plants would be shut down, which would plunge two entire States into darkness without building new generation. It’s all a matter of practicality here.
The plants also had lead paint in several areas, although this was expected to only cost about $20-$50M to remove.
Was it in a recent New York TImes that I read about the asbestos industry in goody-two-shoes Canada? Seems they had a big (and now have a small) asbestos mining industry in Quebec. They export the stuff to third-world countries, and are fighting restrictions on the trade.
All to protect a lousy thousand nasty, dirty, dangerous jobs.
Yeah, in fact we have a town named after the wonder material: Asbestos, Quebec.
I guess my question would be: Is there some application for which asbestos remains the only suitable material? If not, then continuing to mine and trade in it is just a question of politics and business.
Just to pick a nit, not everyone who has mesothelioma has been exposed to asbestos. http://www.mesotheliomatreatmentcenters.org/mesothelioma_information/causes.html In 9 out of 10 cases it is considered the cause, the other 1 out of 10 is unknown.
It may have been in the nytimes too, but it was definately in the Economist. The second to last issue in October I believe. The one prior to the issue in which they endorsed Obama. It was a really interesting article. They said only a few hundred Canadians are even employed in asbestos mining now, right?
Yes, as mentioned in post #5 above, there are around 700 people employed at Canada’s two asbestos mines.
Is it always harmful?
I recall we used to have a hotel as one of our clients and I was told they were going to make the hotel over as a retirement home. But then when it didn’t close I asked them and the General Manager said they found out to convert it would require them removing all the asbestos and that would cost way too much money.
This hotel was in San Francisco, so I was wonder why is that?
Removing not putting it in. In the US you do not have to remove ACM (asbestos containing material). If it is friable, that is can become air born, it has to be incapulsated or removed.
By the way I am coming up on 40 years.
I worked for an asbestos abatement company for close to three years, so I’m pretty familiar with the stuff.
In point of fact, the ancient Egyptians noticed a couple thousand years ago that textile workers who were weaving asbestos fibre into their fabrics were dying from some sort of lung-related disease. So knowing that 'stos is toxic isn’t really news. However, it wasn’t until the 1800s that our modern world really started to use a lot of this material in damn near everything they could think of.
Anyway, here are a few fun facts:
Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral fibre that is mined in a couple locations around the world, including up in Asbestos, Quebec, which I believe is still the number one producer of asbestos on Earth (We’re number 1! We’re number 1! Woo Hoo!). Because it is a natural material, there are trace amounts of 'stos in the air we breathe at any given moment.
Because it is mineral fibre, it is fireproof which makes it valuable for that purpose – various fireproofing applications have used asbestos over the years. It is also very, very strong, which makes it favourable for use in cements, VCT floor tiles, and fabric which requires extra strength.
Asbetsos is a Grade A carcinogen when inhaled. The individual fibres are too small for our lungs to expel or eliminate using their normal methods, so they are typically encapsulated by scar tissue instead. Accumulate too much of this scar tissue in your lungs and you lose the capacity to breathe (this is an oversimplification of the process, but that’s it in a nutshell). After long-term exposure, asbestosis, mesothelioma, or lung cancer are often the result of this process.
Asbestos is not toxic if exposure is not through inhalation. You could sprinkle it on your cereal in the morning and eat it without any ill effects. As a result, undisturbed asbestos is considered benign and is typically left alone if at all possible. You can have 'stos-containing floor tiles, drywall mud, furnace insulation, and ceiling tiles in your house and, so long as you don’t do anything to release fibres into the air (like, I dunno, running a belt sander across the floor tiles), you are perfectly safe.
Asbestos exposure is less carcinogenic than cigarettes. You’ll kill yourself much, much more quickly by smoking than dealing with the amount of 'stos exposure that a typical person is likely to have. That’s great news, right? 
Use of asbestos in newly produced products was, for the most part, outlawed in the mid-1970s and alternative materials were substituted for those applications. These days, you can reasonably expect that any 'stos you encounter has been sitting there for thirty years or so. The likelihood of you coming across anything brand new with 'stos in it is next to none. So feel free to sleep easy on that one. Well, unless you’re living in the Third World, where they’re a little more cavalier about using extremely versatile, inexpensive, but toxic materials in their products.