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Safety Precautions for Asbestos Removal

The best protection against asbestos-containing products is to hire professionals to perform the asbestos removal. Good protection is going to be expensive, but it's well worth it. The specifics depend on the particular asbestos-containing material (ACM) being dealt with and its condition.

• If friable ACM has fallen on its own, immediately seal the room off from the rest of the house and keep children and pets away. Do not take anything out of the room because everything in it is potentially contaminated. Cut off ventilation to the room and seal all vents. Cover windows and doors with thick plastic sheeting and secure it with heavy tape, such as duct tape. Do not neglect the crack under the door.

Once the emergency is handled, decide whether to continue the removal yourself or turn to professionals. Either way, make sure to complete the process of securing it. Figure out what in the room can be cleaned and removed. Only things with hard surfaces that are impermeable to dust can be cleaned. Call a licensed asbestos inspector to test the air not only in that room, but in adjacent rooms as well. This will verify the degree to which the air has already been contaminated, and the degree to which the contamination has been contained.

• Any asbestos-containing or suspicious material that is currently held together, but beginning to crumble should be wet down immediately (but not so heavily that it falls). Cover it with plastic and duct tape until further decisions can be made.
• When the asbestos-containing material covers an entire wall or a ceiling and is highly friable (such as sprayed- or troweled-on textured material for acoustic or thermal insulation or fireproofing), precautions will need to include lining the room with thick plastic (duct-taped in place) and keeping everyone out of the room. Only those wearing head to toe protection such as goggles and a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) respirator may enter the room.
• For removing smaller amounts of ACM, such as molded insulation on pipes, a "glove bag" that zips over the section can be used. Reach into the bag through the integrated gloves to cut off the insulation and drop it to the bottom of the bag. After cleanup, the bag comes off and becomes the disposal container.
• Properly used glove bags can be all the precautions one needs for a room sized abatement project. However, workers should still wear protective clothing and respirators in case of a spill. As long as the asbestos-containing material starts out in good condition, working in one bag at a time may be all the precaution one needs.
• Materials covering a wide area, but have the asbestos encapsulated in a solid surrounding, such as flooring in tiles or sheets, require less significant precautionary measures, but greater care to keep from creating a dangerous situation. In particular, do not use the usual methods of scraping up flooring by excessive force, because the more the flooring breaks up, the higher the risk of releasing fibers into the air.

Once a tile is broken, friable asbestos may be in the home and will need to be removed. Even borrowing a few tiles from inside a closet to replace tiles in another location can loosen mastic that contains asbestos. If the dust does not go airborne, there is a risk of tracking it elsewhere in the house. In addition to workers wearing protective clothing, minimize the number of people who enter the area and remove what you can from the room. Keep the material wet throughout the process and work slowly when peeling the flooring rather than ripping it up. Place the waste into bags as quickly as possible, seal them, and send them to the landfill.

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