Refractory Plant Workers

Workers in certain industries were and are at a much greater risk of asbestos exposure than others. Between the 1940s and the 1980s, during the peak period of asbestos use, people working in shipyards, construction sites, and manufacturing plants where asbestos was used had a high risk of exposure.

Refractory plant workers are one occupational group that were and still are at risk of asbestos exposure. Asbestos has important physical properties that made it an ideal substance to use in refractory plants. For current workers in older plants, the exposure risk still exists if the plant contains asbestos.

Asbestos Exposure

Refractory plant workers - who work in extremely high-heat environments - were exposed to asbestos on a daily basis. Asbestos was used in protective clothing, on surfaces, near boilers and furnaces, and in fact in or around any structure or surface where extremely hot temperatures were a frequent occurrence.

Asbestos is no longer added to most products it was once a component of, but that doesn't eliminate the risk for many workers. Any plant built during the decades when asbestos was in common use may still contain the substance, and workers may still be at risk if they are not taking the appropriate precautions to prevent exposure.

Depending on the exact nature of their employment, a refractory plant worker could be exposed to asbestos in a variety of ways. Common tasks at refractory plants include loading and operating machines that crush raw materials, combining crushed raw materials to create a mix, filling bags and containers with cement and other mixes, operating machinery that presses clay into brick molds, and loading raw materials into kilns. Any of these tasks could present a high risk of asbestos exposure, due to the asbestos dust created and dispersed, or the use of protective clothing made with asbestos fabric.

Refractory Plant Asbestos Uses

Asbestos has high tensile strength and is highly resistant to heat and chemical degradation. Asbestos simply doesn't burn, making it an excellent electrical and thermal insulator, and an even better fire-retardant. For all of these reasons asbestos was added to more than three thousand construction products, machine parts, and household appliances in the twentieth century. Heat-protective fabrics were also made using cloth woven with asbestos.

The heat resistant and flame retardant properties of asbestos made it the obvious choice for use in industries that involved working with very high temperatures. Industrial structures subjected to high heats can reach temperatures of up to 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit, requiring that protective clothing and any equipment used in such environments can withstand extremely high temperatures without degradation. Such materials should also be able to prevent the conduction of heat. Since asbestos can do both, it was ideal for use in refractory plants.

Asbestos was a common component of construction materials and fittings used in refractory plants. Siding, insulation, walls, ceilings, floors, caulks and adhesives, all may have contained the substance. In a refractory plant, where extremely hot temperatures were the rule and not the exception, asbestos was very widely used.

Refractory plants are places where bricks, concrete, cements, mortars, and other substances are manufactured. Aside from the use of asbestos to counteract the risk of very high heat, asbestos was also added to the very products being manufactured, presenting an even higher exposure risk to workers.

What Refractory Plant Workers Should Know

Asbestosis and mesothelioma are both known to develop only as a result of asbestos exposure. Asbestosis is a chronic lung condition caused by prolonged, heavy exposure to asbestos, which causes lung pain and breathing difficulty due to the build-up of scar tissue in the lungs. The damage done by the disease isn't reversible, and treatments can only manage the pain and other symptoms.

Mesothelioma can develop after relatively small amounts of exposure, but symptoms may take anywhere from two to six decades to appear. This makes the disease difficult to diagnose, and by the time symptoms are noticed the cancer has often already have advanced to a stage where treatment is ineffective. As with asbestosis, mesothelioma cancers aren't curable - treatments can only slightly slow the progression of this aggressive disease, and alleviate some of the symptoms.

An estimated 27.5 million American workers were exposed to asbestos in the twentieth century. The true effects of this massive-scale exposure haven't yet been seen, due to the long latency period of many asbestos-related diseases. Refractory plant workers who were exposed in the latter half of last century might still develop asbestos-related diseases even if they currently appear healthy.

Related News