Custodians, janitors, maintenance workers - these workers are part of the background of any public building, office building, commercial building or school. Most of us are familiar with their most obvious duties - sweeping and polishing floors, cleaning and keeping the premises tidy and neat. But there is far more to a custodian's job duties than pushing a broom around the floor, and some of their duties could put them at risk of developing deadly diseases like mesothelioma, asbestosis or lung cancer.

The health risks faced by custodial workers include exposure to asbestos, a fibrous mineral that was once widely used in all sorts of building construction. The EPA estimates that products containing asbestos were used in hundreds of thousands of public buildings built between the 1920s and about 1980, when many uses of asbestos were banned. Those buildings include apartment buildings, shopping malls, public schools, office buildings and factories. Asbestos was used in insulation, pipe insulation, wall boards, joint compound, floor tiles, acoustical ceiling tiles, siding shingles and roofing tiles - and that's just a small portion of the thousands of products in which asbestos was used.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, asbestos in the public environment only becomes hazardous when it is airborne. Asbestos-containing materials like wallboard and floor tiles that are in good repair do not present a health hazard. When those materials become damaged, however, they may release asbestos fibers into the air. That can happen, for instance, when asbestos floor tiles are sanded down or ripped up to make way for a new floor, or when asbestos pipe insulation must be removed from heating pipes in order to make repairs.

Custodians, janitors and maintenance workers who work in older buildings may come into contact with asbestos in the course of their daily job activities. Their duties may include maintaining the furnaces and HVAC systems for the building in which they work. In buildings that were built or renovated before 1980, insulation around ducts, machinery and pipes were often made with asbestos. In some cases, the pipes themselves may have been made with materials that contain asbestos. Any work on those systems may disturb or damage materials that contain asbestos and release asbestos fibers into the air.

Asbestos Exposure

For many reasons, those who work around asbestos containing materials or are exposed to asbestos may not be aware of their exposure. In some cases, the asbestos is contained in walls or beneath floors and is only exposed when something happens to expose or damage the materials. Fires, pipe breakage and flooding are among the most common unplanned reasons for asbestos exposure, but planned renovations also may reveal asbestos that wasn't identified in earlier surveys of a building. Because asbestos-containing materials aren't always readily identifiable on casual inspection, it's important for those who work in and around a building's infrastructure to be aware of the different materials that may contain asbestos so that they can recognize a possible hazard and report it.

Building custodians may also be responsible for carrying out regular inspections and surveys of the building to ascertain that asbestos-containing materials are still intact. As such, they may be the first to come into contact with materials that have become friable, a term that is used to describe asbestos-containing materials that can be crumbled or reduced to powder by hand pressure alone. Friable asbestos is a serious health hazard that can expose anyone in its area to airborne asbestos fibers.

The Effects of Asbestos

When materials that contain asbestos are damaged, they may release asbestos fibers into the air where anyone in the area can breathe them in. Once asbestos is in the body, it can penetrate the tissues, most often beginning with the lung tissues. The fine, needle-like fibers can not be destroyed or excreted by the body. Instead, they work their way through the lungs and out into the lung lining, wreaking havoc as they go. Damage caused by asbestos fibers in the body includes asbestosis, or progressive scarring of the lungs, and mesothelioma, a rare cancer that affects the lining of tissue between the lungs and the chest wall.

Mesothelioma is an aggressive, fast-moving asbestos cancer that may take years to develop. Once it is diagnosed, however, life expectancy is often just a matter of months. There are no known cures for mesothelioma or asbestosis, and effective treatments are few. In short, unprotected exposure to asbestos carries the risk of a death sentence, though it may be decades before the damage is evident.

The law requires that anyone handling asbestos removal or renovations around asbestos must be specially trained and licensed in methods that reduce the chance of asbestos exposure, both for themselves and for others in the area. Those methods include safety equipment and clothing as well as methods of confining the risk to a small area.

If you are or were a custodian and believe that you may have been exposed to asbestos, it is important that you undergo regular screenings to identify any asbestos-related disease. Early identification of mesothelioma, cancer and asbestosis greatly increases your treatment options. In addition, if you were exposed to asbestos and later developed an asbestos related disease, you may be entitled to compensation for your injury and illness. A mesothelioma attorney who is experienced with asbestos litigation can help you determine your options for compensation under the law.