What is the meaning of asbestos?

Asbestos is the name for a group of natural occurring mineral fibres which are strong and both heat and chemically resistant. Due to these properties, asbestos was commonly used in the past as insulation and fireproofing. It was also used as a component in other building materials. There are three main types of asbestos found in Ireland – chrysotile (white asbestos), amosite (brown asbestos) and crocidolite (blue asbestos).

Asbestos.

Sounds dangerous, right? But what exactly is it? Unless you’ve been affected by this hazardous material — or you know someone who has — it’s probably not something you think about every day.

Asbestos is found in rocks and soil. These mineral fibres have worked well for manufacturers for many reasons. For starters, they’re flexible and resistant to heat, chemicals, and electricity. That’s why they were widely used for years to make construction materials, automotive parts, and even textiles.

Other items that may contain asbestos include:

• Insulation in walls and attics

• Vinyl tiles used for floors

• Shingles

• Siding on houses

• Blankets that protect hot water pipes

• Fabrics that resist heat

• Car brakes

The fibres that form asbestos separate very easily into tiny pieces when they’re handled or damaged. They’re too small to see, but they’re easy to breathe in. They can build up in your lungs and cause health problems.

What Health Problems Can Asbestos Cause?

If you breathe in the fibres over long periods of time, you increase your risk for diseases like lung cancer, mesothelioma, and asbestosis. Smokers are even more affected. That’s because cigarette smoke irritates lung passages. This makes it harder for the lungs to remove asbestos fibres.

Mesothelioma. If you’ve worked with the substance, shared a home with someone who has, or lived close to an asbestos mine, see your doctor if you have trouble breathing or believe it’s affected your health.

They can do a chest X-ray or a pulmonary function test to see how much air your lungs can hold. A CT scan or biopsy might help them determine whether you have mesothelioma. That’s a type of cancer that affects the lining that covers the lungs, chest or abdomen. An early warning sign is fluid buildup around the lungs. Other symptoms include pain around the rib cage, problems breathing, a cough, pain or lumps in the belly, fatigue, and constipation.

People who have this kind of rare cancer were typically exposed to asbestos at work or lived with someone who was. It can take up to 20 years for symptoms to show up. Treatment may include surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy.

Safeopedia Explains Asbestos

Asbestos has a long history of about 4000 years. It became very popular in building construction industries in the 19th century because of its unique properties of sound absorption, ductile strength, fire resistance, heat, electrical and chemical insulation.

There are six types of asbestos found in the nature:

• Chrysolite – used in the insulation of buildings, pipes, gasket, boiler seals and automobile brake linings
• Amosite – used in cement sheet, ceiling tiles and pipe insulation. Originates in Africa
• Crocidolite – it is the best heat resistant among all asbestos. It is used in insulation of steam engines, pipes and cement products
• Tremolite – is not used commercially, but traced in chrysolite, vermiculite and talc
• Anthophyllite – used in composite flooring. Found in Finland
• Actinolite – not used commercially, but found as contaminant

Asbestos exposure became a cause of concern as it is responsible for many lethal diseases. House keepers and maintenance employees, fire and emergency workers are more at risk than others and, as a result, are needed to be protected from exposures to asbestos.

Arguably, more is known about exposure to and disease produced by “asbestos” than for any other toxic material or group of materials. A current search of the National Library of Medicine’s database, for example, yields 10,502 references mentioning “asbestos.” This is a large underestimate of “all articles,” however; Google Scholar returns 318,000 citations that contain the word “asbestos” in the text. However, more knowledge has not led to more consensus about exposure-disease relationships or, in particular, about those aspects of exposure, whether physical or chemical, that are the most important disease determinants. Therefore, there is a considerable need to identify what is already known with reasonable certainty, with an emphasis on quality studies rather than cataloguing of studies; what may be debatable but important (data gaps); and how (and if) additional research can contribute to filling the latter. The wide variety of past, available information actually makes this task more difficult because the available information covers a long period of time and measurement methodology and animal models have varied considerably in quality over the years. There is considerable utility in whittling the sources of information down to the most essential and informative studies rather than looking at the literature as a whole, although it is necessary to do the latter to identify the former. Further, since “asbestos exposure” was greatest in the past, early studies (particularly of heavily exposed occupational cohorts) show a much heavier burden of disease and are likely to be more informative as to exposure-response relationships, even if they lack the sophistication of more recent studies. Recently, considerable efforts have been made to explore the past work in the context of new methodology, in terms of both exposure assessment and more accurate determination of disease. This discussion focuses on the “low end of exposure,” however defined (see next section), which adds its own difficulties.

Reference-

Thank you for reading this information about asbestos, we have written an article on the best 30 “Asbestos Removal Melbourne” Companies. Please take a read.

https://www.asbestossafety.gov.au/