Today, asbestos is a name that’s synonymous with danger. Like radium paint and DDT, it’s well known as a technological folly, and created a scandal when the dangers were finally released. Of course it wasn’t seen as such from its first use. In fact, for four thousand years or more people used asbestos without having any clear idea of its dangers. Only in the twentieth century did tests manage to prove how harmful it could be to peoples’ health, and since then it’s been banned around the developed world.
One of the more commonly used types of asbestos, and certainly the form that’s most found in buildings today, is white asbestos, which has the trade name of chrysotile. This is mine from serpentinite rock, which means that it’s classed as a serpentine asbestos. The curly fibres that make up the dust of this material are slightly less harmful to people’s health, as they don’t cause damage to the inside of lungs so easily. But they do still cause cancer. In some rare instances this material is still used in Europe and the US, but for the most part it’s illegal.
The rest of the asbestos family are extracted from amphibole rocks. These are more dangerous to people due to the sharp nature of the fibres, which means they’re more likely to cause damage to the inside of lungs. Brown asbestos, also known as amosite, was a commonly used form of amphibole, as it had brilliant flame resistant properties. Its name comes from an acronym for Asbestos mines of South Africa.
The asbestos that’s regarded as the most deadly is blue asbestos, or crocidolite. Shockingly, this was used in cigarette filers in the 1950s by Kent’s cigarettes. The other three main types of asbestos are Tremolite, Actinolite and Anthophyllite, but these are much less commonly used, although there were some particularly odd uses of them in the past. In fact, traces of them appear in old forms of talcum power, despite the fact that they’re skin irritants.
The three remaining forms of commonly occurring asbestos are tremolite, actinolite and anthophyllite, although these were all less used in manufacturing.
Make a workplace accident claim today if you suffer from the affects of asbestos.