Asbestos Products

Spackling Compounds

Spackling compounds are often used to patch and repair plaster walls and ceilings. Between 1930 and 1980, many spackling compounds contained high levels of asbestos. If your home was built between 1930 and 1980, or if you work in a building that was built during those years, you may be exposed to asbestos dust from deteriorating spackling compound, especially during renovating or remodeling.

In addition, spackling compound was often used as a decorative plaster coat on ceilings and walls from 1930 to 1980. Spackling compound to be used on large jobs like that was often bought in powder form and mixed on site, exposing the workers who mixed the plaster and others in the area to high concentrations of asbestos containing dust. Later, as fashions changed and people sought to cover the old spackled walls and ceilings, workers sanded the spackle plaster down, releasing even more asbestos dust into the air and breathing it while they worked.

If you live in a home that was constructed between 1930 and 1980, there is a high probability that your home contains dozens of asbestos containing products. During those years, there were over 3600 products containing asbestos on the market, many of them meant for construction industries. Those products included spackling compounds, plaster, plasterboard, drywall, putty, joint compound, thin set plaster and many other products used to surface and repair plaster walls.

As long as those walls and other surfaces are intact, they are not supposed to present an appreciable health hazard because the asbestos fibers in them are not "friable", a technical term that loosely translates as "able to become airborne". When these walls or surfaces containing asbestos are disturbed, deteriorated or destroyed, they create a lot of dust filled with tiny fibers of asbestos. Inhaling or swallowing those fibers of asbestos can lead to a deadly cancer called mesothelioma, whose only known cause is exposure to asbestos.

Mesothelioma is a rare cancer that is being diagnosed more and more each year. Many of these diagnoses are due to exposure to asbestos in the workplace, particularly in the construction, shipbuilding and HVAC industries where products containing asbestos are most commonly used. Asbestos was used in many products other than spackling compounds and plaster, including insulation, insulating materials, flooring, roofing tiles, adhesives and mastics. Because mesothelioma has a latency period of anywhere from ten to fifty years, we won't know the full extent of the damage caused by the asbestos industry's disregard of public and worker safety until about 2020 or 2030. when the last of those who were exposed to asbestos dust in the heyday of asbestos begin to be diagnosed.

In the 1960s, individuals with mesothelioma began to bring suit against the asbestos companies for withholding information about the dangers of asbestos from the workers who worked with the substance daily. Since then, the courts have awarded millions of dollars in damages to thousands of plaintiffs who developed mesothelioma after being exposed to products containing asbestos. Because it has been proven that many of those companies deliberately conspired to hide the dangers of working with asbestos from the general public, their workers and the government, companies who mined, processed and made products that contained asbestos have been held accountable for the illnesses caused by it by many courts. However, the laws about asbestos litigation vary from state to state. If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, you'll need the advice of a lawyer who is knowledgeable about asbestos litigation in your state to inform you of your rights to bring suit against those who supplied the products that led to your illness.

Show Your Support

Get Your Own Asbestos      Awareness Wristband
Attention Veterans
Related News