What's this fibrous stuff? (pic)

[R D S]

What does that look like?

FWIW it seems to be collecting in a rattan blind so presumably coming in from outside.

[Chris Hogg]

If it's coming in from outside, it surely can only get where it is on the breeze. My first thought is thistledown. Imagine this a bit crumpled up

. Do you have thistles growing near you, on a patch of waste ground for example? Or do you see thistledown blowing in the breeze?

Failing that, then it must be asbestos! Evacuate! Evacuate!

[R D S]

It isn't thistledown, it looks like small strap to start off with but separates into finer strands at the slightest provocation.

This is my concern, that it's something nasty. I'm hoping it's wafted out of a skip or something, and a one off.

My office is upstairs on a main road, I was looking out one day and a skip wagon went past with a dead cow in it!

[Chris Hogg]

If you put a flame to it, does it burn like e.g. straw, or melt before catching fire like plastic, or remain substantially unchanged like a mineral or glass fibre?

[GB]

I wonder whether it is indeed some plastic strapping that's been left in the sun?

[tabbypurr]

glass fibres, not in mat form. Used to reinforce plastics. Or plastic fibres to reinforce concrete. With no scale indicated it could of course be who knows what else. Doesn't look like asbestos.

NT

[newshound]

+1 for not asbestos, next thing would be a flame test. If it catches fire or melts easily that's +1000 for not asbestos.

[ARW]

The first thing you are taught on an asbestos awareness course is that it is impossible to tell if it as asbestos just by looking at it.

[newshound]

With the naked eye. You can quickly identify many things with a suitable microscope. The glass fibres in "modern" cement/fibre board are more regular than asbestos, for example. IIRC the usual procedure to confirm asbestos involves an optical microscope with polarisers.

[tabbypurr]

A lot of things can be identified or excluded from being asbestos by looking at them.

NT