Asbestos garage - who to dispose?

[ARWadsworth]

Asbestos needs very special considerations for handling and disposal,eg a builder getting a labourer to hide it at the bottom of a skip.

Adam

[John Whitworth]

> Not to say that the tobacco and asbestos (and for that matter oil and

Try speaking to people with lung disorders who worked with asbestos.

Magic Mineral to Killer Dust covers the largest asbestos manufacturer in the UK. What's unique about it, is that is contains inside information (which is now in the public domain), showing Turner and Newalls for exactly what they were. Cover up merchants who screwed their staff, didn't give a s*1t about their health, and manipulated people into thinking that asbestos was great. They did a good job, as plenty of people on here still seem to think the stuff is OK.

If you're wondering where all this information came from, it was after Chase Manhattan Bank sued the balls off of Turner & Newalls, to pay for the removal of the stuff from one of their office blocks.

I'm not sure how you know that your book could perhaps be more balanced - agendas exist on both sides. From the table of contents (One Fibre Can Kill), I'm not really sure it's attacking from the right angle. Of course one fibre cannot kill. You will have breathed that in probably within your first hour out of the womb. Asbestos is dangerous. Sure, removing some stuff from home isn't likely to cause cancer etc, but on the whole, it is bad stuff.

Why would Europe be a better place if Chrysotile was still available today?

JW

[Peter Parry]

It is, from what has been said, asbestos cement, not white asbestos. The risk is negligible if very simple precautions are taken.

[John Whitworth]

Asbestos cement contains varying proportions (though usually around 15%) of white asbestos.

Agreed the risk is negligible given simple precautions.

JW

[Andy Dingley]

Hundreds? That's just going rate for a bit of digging.

One of my nearby sites has just made a whole large asbestos roof disappear by feeding it through the on-site crushing plant that was breaking down bricks for aggregate...

[Clot]

You are so right. There is almost no problem today with asbestos. There are, sadly folk, that are suffering from the extensive wrong use of the material years ago.

I am very pleased with what AbleUK are doing which could reduce the deaths in India as a result of the way they cut up ships - not the asbestos issue.

We in the UK have a desperate need to dispose of these effing idiots in local and central government who are employed to depend upon the state. They are quite possibly intelligent but effing idle!

[Gib Bogle]

Are you aware of the difference between white and blue asbestos?

[RobertL]

Not here in Cambridge. As I said above, the City Council issue you with the plastic bags which are specific to your own car. You are allowed to drive the asbestos (in those bags) to the dump in that specified car. I guess this effectively is a "one off" hazardous waste licence. it is free. this only applies if you DIY it.

[Andy Dingley]

Yes, white killed far more people.

The hazards of blue asbestos, and their hazards beyond those of white asbestos, were known to the Romans, possibly even the Greeks (Slaves lasted longer in some mines than in others). So blue asbestos has had a bad health reputation for a _long_ time, and workers steered clear of it.

What killed the most people was white asbestos. Specifically as heat insulation, where it was used in the lightest and fluffiest possible form. As it was "only white asbestos", its handling in the first half of the 20th century was blase. Almost no protection was taken against dust or fibres, either to protect those working with it, to clean up residues left afterwards, or even to shut the windows on a plant that was spinning it (Turner & Newall's more infamous working practice). The stuff went _everywhere_, and it was treated that way in manufacturing into the '60s, in on-site use into the '70s, and in the scrap trade (railway carriages in particular) well into the '90s.

Now we've gone the other way. Our regulations and practices lump bunded boards in with loose fibre insulation and we've become paranoid.

[Man at B&Q]

As with any statistical effect, there will always be outliers in the data.

MBQ

[Mr Fuxit]

If there is a Hell, do they use asbestos to control the spread of fire?

[newshound]

>>> Not to say that the tobacco and asbestos (and for that matter oil and

And the connection with asbestos cement products is?

[John Whitworth]

No, because there are better fire-retarding materials! ;-)

[John Whitworth]

>>>>> Not to say that the tobacco and asbestos (and for that matter oil and

Asbestos cement products contain chrysotile asbestos.

[John Whitworth]

Of course. But when it's people's lives, blips of data are a little more worrying.

[Bruce]

I wonder if those people who bluster on here that the risk from asbestos is grossly overstated would like to guess how many construction workers die each year from asbestos related disease?

To make it clearer, these people worked in the construction industry, not in manufacturing industry, so they will not have been exposed to factory processes involving asbestos.

So how many?

[John Whitworth]

I wouldn't be able to guess. But I'd say it would be high. Virtually everyone in the building industry up until perhaps 20 years ago would have been handling the stuff, and blissfully sawing and drilling it. There is a lot of text in "Magic Mineral to Killer Dust", which quotes the directors and top-brass of Turner & Newalls acknowledging that not everyone who should have had masks for their job could have them, as otherwise other people working in the vicinity would also want protection.

JW

[John Whitworth]

[dom]

About 2100 new cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed in the UK each year:

the HSE does permit working with the less dangerous forms of asbestos with some basic precautions:

[Bruce]

Yes, that's the figure I saw.

In the most recent year for which official records are available, 53 construction workers died as a result of workplace accidents. That's one a week.

Meanwhile, over 1000 construction workers die each year from asbestos related disease. That's 20 a week.

Perhaps those who seek to trivialise asbestos related disease on this newsgroup should take a look at those figures and think before posting their usual nonsense ...