Asbestos Abatement

Asbestos Abatement - Overview

Most people know that asbestos is a very dangerous substance, but many do not understand what it is or why it is bad for your body. Understanding asbestos is important, because the medical problems associated with this substance can cause serious medical problems and even death. Knowledge truly is power--it is crucial to know what asbestos is and how you can take precautions to avoid it.

What is Asbestos?

Asbestos is a substance found naturally in the environment. However, that does not make it good for your body. Asbestos is mined and there are six different kinds. Although it is well known how dangerous asbestos is for your body, a few countries still allow it to be mined today, since the products made with asbestos are so inexpensive, strong, and flexible. Of the six asbestos types, anthophyllite, tremolite, and actinolite are most commonly found and used throughout the world.

Why Worry About Asbestos?

What we found out about asbestos, a few decades too late is that the very light, fine, virtually indestructible fibers trigger all the wrong responses from living bodies. Loose in the air, they are easily inhaled without causing so much as a cough. They can easily be sucked all the way down into the working regions of the lungs. The lungs try to repair the tiny irritations. Such delicate tissue, however, can result in over-repair, or scarring. Scarred lung tissue cannot absorb oxygen from the air or pass back carbon dioxide. This is known as asbestosis.

Asbestos can also trigger malignancy -cancer- or an otherwise very rare cancer called mesothelioma. This is a cancer of the lining of the chest wall (pleural) and/or the abdominal cavity (peritoneal). This can even affect the lining in the heart or other organs. Research suggests that the thinnest asbestos fibers, especially those that are too long for the body's street-sweeper cells, macrophages that can physically move to where they can be exhaled are most likely to migrate out of the lungs into these lining tissues. In fact, when the macrophages are "frustrated" by trying to move foreign bodies that are bigger than they are, they can disintegrate and release enzymes, oxidants, and other toxic materials of their own. There are some argument over whether asbestos is also responsible for cancer in the gastrointestinal tract (esophagus, stomach, and intestines).

Simple asbestosis is bad enough. It is progressive and irreversible, and does not produce symptoms until it is pretty far advanced. The good news is that asbestosis rarely happens to anyone who has not been exposed at high enough levels over a long period of time. Fibers escaping by chance in your home will most not give it to you. The symptoms are shortness of breath, pain in the upper chest or back, and a certain dry rattle. Poor breathing causes fingertips (and toes) to flatten in a way that's described as "clubbed."

All of the asbestos-related diseases have very long latencies -ten to thirty years for lung cancer, twenty to fifty for mesothelioma- and they can be masked by other factors such as smoking. In the meantime, if there are no detectable physical damage or X-ray changes, so there is no way to screen for exposure. This latency is part of the reason it took so long to make the connection to asbestos exposure as a cause.

One study found that a chrysotile fiber one millimeter in diameter will dissolve into lung fluids within nine months; another says fifteen days or less. Some studies have also found that chrysotile fibers change chemically when embedded in some of their most common matrix materials. A fiber of pure silica the same size can take up to 438 years to dissolve. No studies have been done on how long it takes amphibole fibers to dissolve.

Smoking not only masks the connection between lung cancer and asbestos, it can intensify it. Exposure to asbestos may increase even a nonsmoker's risk of lung cancer five times. In a smoker, asbestos can aggravate the risk, already double that of a nonsmoker exposed to asbestos to more than ten times the risk.

Of course, when asbestos was mined and so widely used, workers in many industries were not only exposed to the fibers themselves, but unwittingly carried them home to their families. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, in the US Department of Health and Human Services, says -nearly everyone has low levels of asbestos- in their urine and sputum (material you cough up from your lungs). This just means that finding asbestos in these body fluids cannot, at least so far, predict your risk of asbestos-related illness. While the numbers of workers exposed to legally identify toxic levels of asbestos each year in the US are falling to very low levels, the numbers of cases of asbestos-related illness are peaking.

Some of the highest incidence of mesothelioma has been not among those who worked with asbestos as adults, but among their children. That is, young bodies that were exposed to asbestos as it was carried home on parents' work clothes seem to have been more susceptible to its worst effects than their parents. Now that these children are passing middle age, they are feeling the effects. This is why there is such particular concern about asbestos-containing materials (ACM) in school buildings. Many institutions of higher learning have published their surveys of ACM in their buildings; their careful plans to manage it, prevent undue exposure of workers and students, and gradually remove it; and programs to educate their populations as to the dangers of disturbing ACM. Some universities even maintain their own accredited asbestos testing labs and abatement crews.

It is not clear how many people may still be exposed to the aging asbestos-containing materials in their homes. Homeowners' that are in control of their environments make the risk much lower than in public buildings.

If you already know you are at risk for these illnesses because you have been exposed to high levels of asbestos, about the most you can do besides getting out of whatever is exposing you to it (and of course quitting smoking), is to have regular medical checkups and all the vaccinations you can against flu, pneumonias, and other diseases that affect the lungs. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) still takes asbestos-related illness seriously enough that in May 2007 it conducted a public-comment process just to set a "roadmap" for further research. In particular, they are considering research on whether other fibrous or fiber-like minerals are as dangerous as the six we know as asbestos, research to find better ways to identify and analyze even smaller mineral fibers, and research to determine just what makes fibers like asbestos so toxic.

Where will I find asbestos? I-Naturally occurring asbestos

If you live in an area where asbestos occurs naturally, you can limit your exposure by being aware of where there are or have been commercial operations to mine and process asbestos, and staying away from them. Some helpful hints include:

  • use paved trails rather than open soil to hike, bike, walk, or jog; wheeled vehicles such as mountain bikes, dirt bikes, and ATVs are especially likely to throw up dust for you to breathe
  • do your outdoor activities in areas where the ground is covered with mulch, wood chips, sand, pea gravel, grass, asphalt, or rubber in mats or shredded
  • layer soil that you know does not contain asbestos. Never dig without wetting the soil thoroughly first to keep the asbestos in the soil instead of the air
  • Do not use a leaf blower. It is better to use water to clear sidewalks and patios, or at least to wet the surface dust down before clearing it with a broom (that you leave outside)
  • take care to prevent your family or pets from tracking dry soil into the house - use doormats or remove your shoes; do not allow your pets to roll in dry dust outside
  • keep windows and doors closed when it's windy or any of your neighbors are digging for construction, gardening, or other purposes
  • drive slowly over unpaved roads with the car windows closed, and share your concern with local authorities. Get the car washed often and pave your own driveway and walkways
  • always use wet rags and mops to clean up dust from furniture, floors, and outdoor equipment. Wash the rags before they dry; never shake a dust mop or rag to clean it
  • use washable area rugs on easily mopped floors; wash both often
  • if you do have carpet, vacuum it often, using a machine with a HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter; wet down the contents of the dust cup before emptying them.

Where will I find asbestos? II-A little history

Asbestos has looked useful to humans for at least five thousand years. It has been found mixed into the clay for pots made in Finland in 2500 BC. Early references have been found to use asbestos fibers for everlasting lamp wicks and to weave shrouds for wrapping bodies for cremation. Peter the Great of Russia is said to have been the first to develop asbestos paper. The first real industrial application was in textiles in Italy in the early 19th century.

Asbestos has been in US commercial use since 1880. Asbestos use began with the 20th century as the Industrial Revolution came to full maturity with mass-production techniques and new demands for friction products such as brake shoes and clutches for automobiles. Demand and production fell off during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but World War II saw another boost to the use of asbestos for thermal insulation and fire prevention. Through the 1950s and '60s, asbestos looked like a modern marvel with piles of advantages and no disadvantages. It was available in as many as 3600 different commercial products. It was light, fireproof, strong, insulating (both thermally and electrically), and mixed well with a number of other building materials to give them its miracle properties.

A 1984 survey by the Environmental Protection Agency found friable asbestos (susceptible to releasing its fibers into the air) in 42 of the agency's own 270 buildings. In 1988 the EPA found asbestos in at least 700,000 public and commercial buildings across the country, more than a half million of them with damaged (friable) asbestos. Those were the sectors where it was used most heavily, not private residences, and suggests how pervasive asbestos has been for our modern life.

One of the major recent developments in industry responsibility is acceptance of "cradle-to-grave" attention to how asbestos is handled. For asbestos-mining companies, that mostly means worker protections until the asbestos is safely encapsulated in some matrix product, such as cement. For homeowners, it should mean taking responsibility for the asbestos in your home and for protecting your community when and if you decide to remove it - until it is safely returned to the earth, with fair warning to anyone who might come upon it.

Where will I find asbestos? III-In my home

The answer to where you'll find asbestos in your home depends on when your home was built and renovated. If the house, or anything in it, was built in the "miracle" period of asbestos mining, manufacturing, and application - before the mid-1970s -there is a very good chance you will have some asbestos-containing materials to deal with. They can be everywhere, outside and in, from the roof to the basement.

In fact, you could go out today and legally buy asbestos-containing roofing materials, wallboard, and flooring, although even those products are becoming less available as public reservations about asbestos find wider and wider agreement. Some of the materials that will be the hardest to deal with are also the hardest to spot. Such materials include: vinyl wall coverings; ceiling tiles and sprayed or troweled-on "popcorn" textured coatings. For most of these products, the only way to tell the asbestos-containing from the ordinary versions is to scientifically sample them for testing using an EPA-certified lab. If you guess incorrectly and use ordinary methods for removing these materials to redecorate - such as simply tearing the wallpaper down as much as you can while it is dry - you may raise enough asbestos dust to endanger your family's health.

Some of the oldest asbestos-containing materials in your house may be more obvious, because there is not really an asbestos-free version around. An old furnace, especially one that was built to burn coal or wood, may look as though it is wrapped in the kind of plaster they used to put on children's broken arms and legs. This kind of "block insulation" is either harmless or a huge threat to your family, depending on how well it is held up over the years. At the very least, you'll have a job removing and disposing of it when you do replace the furnace.

It is important to determine if asbestos is located in your water or steam pipes. There are two kinds, a plastery-looking blanket held on by a kind of canvas, and a multilayer paper, sometimes with a corrugated middle layer and sometimes covered in tape. Both of these are safe as long as they are not damaged by water leaks or by children playing nearby.The safest thing to do with them is to coat them with some modern protection. You can do this by placing the blanket type with plastic sheeting or by spraying on a penetrating resin that will harden and encapsulate the asbestos fibers. These protections, however, will make it more difficult to remove the insulation later and somewhere along the line it will have to be removed.

Most states and/or municipalities require the separate removal and proper disposal of all asbestos-containing materials when any building is demolished, or when you renovate an area where such materials are present. There is no federal requirement that you disclose the presence of asbestos-containing materials on your property when you sell or rent it to others. You should check your local and state laws, though, as they have the option to be stricter than federal law.

What's the dangerous difference?

It is important to determine whether or not asbestos is found in your insulation. Regulations, as well as advice for protecting yourself and your family, specify the materials or conditions that are likely to lead to fibers going airborne.

The major distinction is friable vs. nonfriable material. This is a question whether the asbestos-containing material - the flooring, roofing, or pipe wrap - can be crushed, pulverized, or turned to powder by the pressure of the average human hand. Some of the materials in widespread use are easily crushed to powder that could release dry asbestos fibers into the air. Others get that way as they age and are subjected to weathering and other forces. Others, because of the kind of material into which the asbestos has been mixed, stay either hard enough or flexible enough to hold their asbestos essentially forever.

Federal law recognizes these variations within the classification of nonfriable asbestos. There are two categories of basically nonfriable material, distinguishing material that has become friable for one reason or another (Category I) from material that remains nonfriable (Category II). Even Category II material may be regulated as friable material.. If Category II nonfriable material has been cut, scraped, sanded, or disturbed to where it produces dust, or if it is likely to be be disturbed in these ways in the course of planned demolition or renovation, it falls with the friable and Category I materials.

What's Banned?

  • In 1972 asbestos was banned from clothing
  • In 1973 spraying asbestos-containing materials on buildings to fireproof them was ended.
  • In 1977 asbestos was taken out of patching compounds and gas heaters.
  • As of 1979, hair-dryer manufacturers voluntarily recalled products that use asbestos to insulate them. They replaced the asbestos with other materials and stopped using asbestos in their new products.

In 1986, the US Environmental Protection Agency proposed a ten-year program that would result in a comprehensive ban on commercial use of asbestos. The ban passed in 1989 and the first phase implemented in 1990, but the rule was overturned by a federal appeals court in 1991. After another two years of clarification, the EPA found itself with six types of asbestos-containing materials still banned, and all others nominally still on the free market (though most categories were already rapidly losing popularity).

The six include:

  1. flooring felt - asbestos paper saturated with asphalt or another material to serve as underlayment for vinyl tiles or sheet flooring
  2. "commercial paper" used in thin barriers for insulation or muffling
  3. "corrugated paper" - similar to corrugated cardboard, but with asbestos in one or more of the layers of paper
  4. "rollboard" - two sheets of asbestos paper laminated together (using a roller) into a continuous, flexible sheet. Particularly used in office partitions, garage paneling, linings for stoves and electrical boxes, and fireproofing for security boxes, safes, and file storage.
  5. "specialty paper" - for use in filters for beverages and other fluids, and in cooling towers for liquids from industrial processes and air-conditioning systems
  6. "new uses of asbestos" - products have not historically contained asbestos as of the start of the regulatory process in 1989.

Some other regulations under the Clean Air Act restrict other particular methods of applying asbestos-containing materials and have had the effect of ending their commercial potential.

What are the Categories of Asbestos-Containing Materials?

To qualify as an asbestos-containing material (ACM) under the law, a product must contain at least one percent asbestos, by weight for bulky materials or by area for flat ones.

Then regulations distinguish between friable ACM -that can be reduced to dust by crushing it in your hand - and nonfriable ACM that cannot be crushed, at least not so easily.

Within the group of nonfriable ACMs there are two categories. Category I gathers into the regulations all the asbestos-containing materials that started out nonfriable but, whether with the help of simple aging, weather, or some more specific force, have in fact been reduced to dust that can release asbestos fibers into the air. Category II is everything else nonfriable. Category II ACMs can also come under regulation if they are cut, sanded, or scraped so that they produce dust and presumably airborne asbestos fibers. It is obvious that they're going to be disturbed and produce dust in the course of renovation or demolition. These categories all become "regulated asbestos-containing materials" (RACM).

What should I look for?

It is not generally easy to identify asbestos-containing materials in use. The safest assumption is that anything of an appropriate age to be made with asbestos probably was. Some of the products have built-in clues, but the only reliable ones are in the basic nature of the product. For the results of asbestos containing material, you need to send carefully collected samples to a laboratory certified by the Environmental Protection Agency for examination. There, an experienced technician uses a polarized microscope to be able to spot asbestos fibers.

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