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Say Hello To Asbestos Use in the US....AGAIN

jar546

jar546

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This I am having a hard time believing:

One of the most dangerous construction-related carcinogens is now legally allowed back into U.S. manufacturing under a new rule by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Fast Company recently reported that on June 1, the EPA authorized a “SNUR” (Significant New Use Rule) which allows new products containing asbestos to be created on a case-by-case basis.

According to environmental advocates, this new rule gives chemical companies the upper hand in creating new uses for harmful products in the United States. In May, the EPA released a report detailing its new framework for

https://archpaper.com/2018/08/epa-asbestos-manufacturing/
 
Canada still permits asbestos in certain areas. To my knowledge it is restricted to industrial high ventilation areas.
 
We can't do anything about the Russian's who mine it, so just hope they're wearing masks when they're down there.

The firestopping and insulating capabilities of asbestos are undeniable. Encapsulated, and used for those purposes, I don't see much issue with using it.
 
EPA
Environmental Pollution Agency
Their main purpose is to issue permits to pollute the environment in limited quantities

Call it what it is
 
I had a late buddy who owned a company called American Asbestos, he made mostly gaskets. He got sued so much that he changed the name to American Asbestos and Rubber, and finally to American Rubber. When they built the windmills at Altamont Pass the windmills kept tearing up the gaskets they sat on, he designed gaskets for them with asbestos in them that could survive all the shaking. And no, he didn't die from the asbestos he worked with every day, he died sitting at his desk from a heart attack.
 
Mesothelioma got my Grandpa, from both his time in the Navy and then from ~30 years of building elevators in high rises all over the country. They just didn't know any better back in the day.

I still think it has legitimate uses, and it does some things better than anything else. If there's a way to use it safely, then a blanket ban on it is small thinking.
 
A lot of products started failing after they had to remove the asbestos from them and substitute other fibers.

Unfortunately the government treats all forms of asbestos the same. Non-friable caulking or tile adhesive with 2% asbestos is deemed as hazardous as friable sprayed insulation that's 50% asbestos, and you have to do the same special testing, filtration, wear bunny suits, etc. to remove it.

The old corrugated pipe insulation was extremely friable when it deteriorated. I understand that WWII ships also had a lot of sprayed asbestos insulation, and sprayed fireproofing & acoustical insulation was widely used in the 60s. Workers had no protection, which led to a lot of cases of mesothelioma. When the EPA issued its regulations in the late 80s I heard at some seminars that smokers who worked with asbestos were much more likely to develop mesothelioma than non-smokers.

I believe it is possible to safely manufacture and use products with asbestos. Mining it safely is a much bigger problem.
 
When I worked for O’Dell pool plastering I had a bag of asbestos. I put a about two cups in the mixer and it made trowels glide. I have little doubt that I inhaled plenty of it.
With replasters I had to cut a line below the tile with a skill saw and that was more asbestos. I wore a mask with filters for that.

We did a large new pool in Atherton and used black plaster. Six months later we were doing a white replaster on the same pool because the lady couldn’t handle not being able to see the bottom. Six months after that we were plastering a new pool because the lady wanted it moved fifty feet further away from the house.
 
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When I was 15 years-old I went to work with carpenters building a house across the street for 50¢ a week, the wall insulation was fiberglass batts that made your arms itch so I was told to wear a sweat shirt, after the buttonboard went up I was sent up into the attic carrying bags of Zonolite insulation to spread,, as I emptied the bags clouds of dust came out so thick I could hardly breathe in the attic, when the plasterers started I had to be their hod carrier, slacking the lime was dangerous as it "boiled and bubbled" so I had to wear the same sweatshirt to protect myself from the burning lime, we didn't use sand in the plaster, we used the same bags of Zonolite insulation and I had to dump the bags into the cement mixer emitting the same clours of dust, nobody had heard of a mask in those days, only "pussies" would wear a mask, that was 68 years ago and I'm still here smoking 4 Cuban cigars per day.

Wearing a respirator mask was the equivalent of wearing a mask on a football helmet, one team started wearing masks so we ripped their heads off grabbing the masks, those masks also were mounted to plastic helmets, we wore real leather helmets.
 
When I went through a 80 hour asbestos abatement supervisor course in 1988 the statistic presented was a smoker was 60 to 65% more likely to contract an asbestos related lung disease than a non-smoker who worked with asbestos on a daily basis. The surveys where conducted by John Hopkins on various trade workers in the construction and ship building trades
 
Think the air you're breathing now is asbestos free?

As I recall around 1990 mostly front wheel drive vehicles started experiencing squeaky brakes when they reduced or removed asbestos from the lining. It took few years for the manufacturer's to design an assembly and reformulate the (metallic) lining material to resolve the noise issue while meeting the standards for stopping performance. However according to EPA asbestos material is not banned!
https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/us-federal-bans-asbestos

Examples of asbestos-containing products not banned
The manufacture, importation, processing and distribution in commerce of these products, as well as some others not listed, are not banned.

  • Cement corrugated sheet
  • Cement flat sheet
  • Clothing
  • Pipeline wrap
  • Roofing felt
  • Vinyl floor tile
  • Cement shingle
  • Millboard
  • Cement pipe
  • Automatic transmission components
  • Clutch facings
  • Friction materials
  • Disk brake pads
  • Drum brake linings
  • Brake blocks
  • Gaskets
  • Non-roofing coatings
  • Roof coatings
Now believe it or not here's some good news for you JAR!

When asbestos brake pads wear out or disintegrate, the asbestos escapes into the air. The risk to technicians is that cleaning brake assemblies and grinding brake linings can expose them to this potentially toxic asbestos dust.

Although auto manufacturers have eliminated asbestos in new vehicles, the aftermarket is a different story. In Canada, it is still legal to import aftermarket parts that contain asbestos; in the past decade, more than $100 million worth of asbestos automotive parts have been imported into Canada.

The good news is that in December 2016, the Government of Canada announced that it will impose a ban on asbestos and asbestos-containing products in 2018, a move hailed by industry professionals, politicians, public health officials and other stakeholders, who have long advocated for such a ban.

https://www.thestar.com/autos/2017/06/24/auto-industry-applauds-asbestos-ban.html
 
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Boy! I though break pads could no longer have asbestos. For years we cut and applied sheets to garage doors to get a rated door. Of course that was before pre-hug doors & screw guns .
 
All of us have more than a million sharp mineral fibres in our lungs by the time we die. In our cities there are around 11 mineral fibres in every litre of air and we each inhale around 300,000 fibres a day. Why, then, do we not suffer the same fate as residents of Cappadocia?

Not all mineral fibres, it seems, are dangerous. Most fibres found drifting in the air of our buildings are gypsum crystals from plasterboard, which are quickly dissolved inside the lung. Even the dreaded asbestos is not worthy of the all-encompassing paranoia it instills. Most asbestos used in buildings is made mainly from the mineral chrysotile, a flexible clay fibre that can be both dissolved and removed from the lungs by the, delightfully named, mucus elevator. It is the blue or brown asbestos, which consists mainly of brittle and resistant fibres of the minerals amosite, crocidolite, sometimes with tremolite and amesite, that remains in the lung and causes asbestosis and, particularly in smokers, lung cancer and mesothelioma.

In everyday settings, exposure to asbestos is too low to be of concern. There are, for example, usually fewer airborne asbestos fibres inside modern buildings than there are on the streets due to its use in the brake shoes of older motor vehicles. A single asbestos fibre is also extraordinarily unlikely to kill. It takes prolonged exposure to high doses to be hazardous. The health and safety executive agree and their guidelines on asbestos are simple: if in good repair, leave well alone.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2002/jan/17/physicalsciences.technology
 
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