Asbestos. Instant death???

[mike os]

There’s some posh new houses built last year with imported stone work surfaces and flooring.

It looks stunning as there is some lovely but fibrous Marbeling. They couldn’t get it to seal, then someone starting asking questions.

Anyway some samples were sent to us and guess what, it’s chrysotile, some of the highest quality naturally pure stuff ever seen by our labs

Country of origin?

 

[weldingnovice]

When I have bought gasket sets, clutch plates etc from usa suppliers they come with the asbestos warning symbol on the packaging.
At the time (10 ish years) I had a quick look on the epa website and it seems that prior to some legislation passed circa 1990 products that contained asbestos can/are still manufactured with it in and any new products after that date must not contain it
I read it as for instance an iphone can not have it in but gaskets can.

 

[minimutly]

There was a fire at a skipyard in Sheffield last week, I could see it from home (A couple of miles away), nothing online at the time so I went to see what was going on, roads were already closed by the time I got there but a small crowd had formed, someone was telling me it's where all the construction waste from the city ends up so there's all sorts in there, "could be asbestos". Yer no it couldn't mate.

Tyre and fridge recyclers - take thousands from the councils, then there is a mysterious fire......

And on the subject of lung disease, apparently mdf is the next ticking timebomb (according to one of our H&S advisors).
Personall I think catalytic converters could be an issue.

 

[8ob]

I am pretty sure I will be dying of asbestosis, my first years of work were for a mechanical services company working in huge plant rooms and we were in contact with asbestos virtually every day. Some days we were going home covered in the stuff, worse still this was quite often loaded onto open back trucks and then taken to the dump followed by clouds of the dust.

Bob

 

[earthman]

Isn't messing with nature, human nature, as it were? As well as, frankly every other species.

All organisms look to exploit niches, humans are no different in that respect. Where we do differ though is we have the capacity to be conscious about the knock on effects our choices/actions have, rather than relying on evolution to weedle out the stupid ideas.

Essentially, digging asbestos out of the ground is a parallel to a blackbird smashing snails on a rock. Find a useful tool/material/technique - exploit it. It's how we are where we are and is inherent in us and the whole of the natural world.

That's a fair point, I can't help but feel that humans have taken things to the ninth degree though and what with capitalism/greed for money being a motive for many, the for the 'greater good' aspect often get's over looked I think. If say blackbirds had become the dominant species, I wonder if things would have turned out the same,....you would hope not hey??

 

[Parm]

Country of origin?

I believe it came from South Africa but I can’t be sure. Will check on Monday

 

[Parm]

There was a fire at a skipyard in Sheffield last week, I could see it from home (A couple of miles away), nothing online at the time so I went to see what was going on, roads were already closed by the time I got there but a small crowd had formed, someone was telling me it's where all the construction waste from the city ends up so there's all sorts in there, "could be asbestos". Yer no it couldn't mate.

the correct answer is there shouldn’t be, but the real answer is who knows?

 

[Gareth J]

That's a fair point, I can't help but feel that humans have taken things to the ninth degree though and what with capitalism/greed for money being a motive for many, the for the 'greater good' aspect often get's over looked I think. If say blackbirds had become the dominant species, I wonder if things would have turned out the same,....you would hope not hey??

I do, broadly agree with you. Apologies for being devils advocate a bit though - people often fetishize "natural" or similar in the belief that things were better at some previous time. They really weren't, the very fact that people live long enough for asbestosis to be a bother and people are studying and working out the causal relationships such things have is a testament to how well off we are. Not even to mention our (thankfully) insanely low infant mortality rates.

Always room for improvement though and I for one hope we do continue to try.

 

[brightspark]

a rather large property near us had a lot of asbestos and was going to cost an arm and a leg to remove there was a mystery fire and the lot went up but they were well insured how fortunate was that

 

[mtt.tr]

a rather large property near us had a lot of asbestos and was going to cost an arm and a leg to remove there was a mystery fire and the lot went up but they were well insured how fortunate was that

Hows ya luck haha

 

[brightspark]

Hows ya luck haha

its funny how there was cars parked in the carpark regular overnite and there wasn't any when it happened more luck

 

[mtt.tr]

its funny how there was cars parked in the carpark regular overnite and there wasn't any when it happened more luck

That's like a fairy tale story

 

[earthman]

I do, broadly agree with you. Apologies for being devils advocate a bit though - people often fetishize "natural" or similar in the belief that things were better at some previous time. They really weren't, the very fact that people live long enough for asbestosis to be a bother and people are studying and working out the causal relationships such things have is a testament to how well off we are. Not even to mention our (thankfully) insanely low infant mortality rates.

Always room for improvement though and I for one hope we do continue to try.

There are certainly some big pluses to living in these current times I agree, I certainly wouldn't like to have lived before anesthesia/advancements in surgical procedures hadn't been discovered for example. It's still sad that a fair bit of our modern world/life goes against nature,...Dr Gabor mate makes some good points here I think.

 

[Gareth J]

There are certainly some big pluses to living in these current times I agree, I certainly wouldn't like to have lived before anesthesia/advancements in surgical procedures hadn't been discovered for example. It's still sad that a fair bit of our modern world/life goes against nature,...Dr Gabor mate makes some good points here I think.

Within a few seconds, he's fallen into the same old tropes of "we're destroying nature" etc.

To fetishize an undefined "nature" in this way is unhelpful. We know what people like that speaker mean but it's woolly and, without proper definition, a bit meaningless and potentially harmful.

As discussed above, exploiting a resource is a natural product of millions of years of evolution and I don't see it as unnatural. On the other hand, looking several generations, or even further, into the future is unique among humans and IMO, pretty unnatural. It's probably why we all find it so hard to change now - for the uncertain but likely benefit of our grandchildren.

I would argue we need to be MORE, unnatural, look further ahead, work more collaborativly with our neighbours and enemys in order to slow the rate of change we are creating. Not "destruction". Change. Rapid change we as a species, along with many other species will suffer from.

Think back to what we know about the carboniferous period. Plants went nuts to take advantage of the high CO2 concentration. They didn't stop to think, or realise that their vast growth would hugely increase the, to them, toxic O2 levels and unleash the potential for all manor of crazy O2 loving species and forset fires that would all eventually radically alter their planty way of life. A natural process? Or should the trees have known better and just used a sustainable amount of C02 to keep their system in balance?

We'll never stop nature working but we should use our consciousness to try to understand the knock on effects and make sensible decisions about whether or not the change might end up being worse than the immediate benefit. Like asbestos.

 

[earthman]

Within a few seconds, he's fallen into the same old tropes of "we're destroying nature" etc.

To fetishize an undefined "nature" in this way is unhelpful. We know what people like that speaker mean but it's woolly and, without proper definition, a bit meaningless and potentially harmful.

As discussed above, exploiting a resource is a natural product of millions of years of evolution and I don't see it as unnatural. On the other hand, looking several generations, or even further, into the future is unique among humans and IMO, pretty unnatural. It's probably why we all find it so hard to change now - for the uncertain but likely benefit of our grandchildren.

I would argue we need to be MORE, unnatural, look further ahead, work more collaborativly with our neighbours and enemys in order to slow the rate of change we are creating. Not "destruction". Change. Rapid change we as a species, along with many other species will suffer from.

Think back to what we know about the carboniferous period. Plants went nuts to take advantage of the high CO2 concentration. They didn't stop to think, or realise that their vast growth would hugely increase the, to them, toxic O2 levels and unleash the potential for all manor of crazy O2 loving species and forset fires that would all eventually radically alter their planty way of life. A natural process? Or should the trees have known better and just used a sustainable amount of C02 to keep their system in balance?

We'll never stop nature working but we should use our consciousness to try to understand the knock on effects and make sensible decisions about whether or not the change might end up being worse than the immediate benefit. Like asbestos.

All I know is that we only have one planet to live on and it would seem that we have pretty much screwed that up already, the plastic pollution aspect being one example.