Date:

Duration: 1:58

Information about the chemical properties of asbestos that made it so useful in products and why asbestos is so dangerous.

Video Transcript

Asbestos is the name given to a group of six mineral crystal fibers including chrysotile, crocidolite, and amosite. These minerals were mined primarily for their chemical and thermal stability and high tensile strength. Due to these properties, asbestos was added to products to make them stronger and provide heat insulation.

Asbestos was used in many different products, including pipe coverings, gaskets, fire bricks, industrial packing, brakes, industrial aprons, car clutches, and the walls, ceilings and floorboards of homes, schools and businesses.

Even though industry studies proved asbestos to be dangerous as early as the 1930s, it was not until the 1980s that the full story of how industry executives conspired to conceal the danger of asbestos to protect their profits was exposed.

Asbestos in the ground by itself does not present a health threat. When asbestos-containing products are installed, cut, fabricated, or removed, the fibers can become airborne and be lethal to human beings who breathe in asbestos-containing dust. Improperly maintained asbestos can also become dry and friable, which means that it can be crushed to dust by a bare hand. Then the dust and micro fibers can become airborne. It is when these micro fibers are breathed into the lungs that asbestos becomes dangerous. When the asbestos particle settles in a person's lungs, it can create diseases such as mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, and pleural disease.

While some asbestos products have deteriorated to such a great degree that asbestos is being released into the air on a regular basis, we have found that the people with the greatest risk of disease are industrial utility, shipyard, refining, steel, chemical, pharmaceutical, beverage, and maintenance workers, as well as those in the construction and building trades and non-union crafts workers.

In 1989 the EPA instituted the asbestos ban and phase-out. However, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned this in 1991. As a result, much of the original EPA ban was lifted. As a result, the use of asbestos is still allowed in some applications.