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A Brief History of Asbestos
🕑 Added 2023-11-14 11:15:01 +0000 UTCI’ve lived in some pretty old buildings in my life, some of which were built around the peak of asbestos use in the UK.
The house I lived in as a child, for example, was built in the late 1800s. There was asbestos in the roof of the garden shed (which we never used) but no asbestos in the actual house itself. My family say this is because the building was hit by a bomb in the Second World War, and the roof was replaced, leading to the complete removal of the most likely spot for asbestos to be found.
Later on, I lived in a flat in Edinburgh that did have some known asbestos. Asbestos boiler covers were a big thing in Scotland, and in this flat the old boiler (complete with asbestos cover) was still in situ in a cupboard in the hall. The solution was simple: we closed the cupboard with the old boiler in it, taped it up, and never ever opened it.
Where I live now is a relatively new building, so there’s no reason to worry about asbestos… although in the course of checking out the history of the building I did find out that it was built right at the time when dangerous, flammable cladding was in use in the UK. It seems like for every century there’s a new widespread building hazard to worry about!
Comments
Fascinating Horror
Sorry to hear about your uncle. That's devastating. A lot of accounts mentioned that there was very little time between diagnosis and passing away when it came to mesothelioma. Shocking that asbestos was used on the underground - removing that must have been a nightmare!
Dungeoneer
My uncle died recently (couple years ago) due to cancer caused by working with asbestos. Probably exposed in the 70s. He lasted about 6 months after diagnosis. Very sad to lose him, he was a good man. London Underground also used asbestos as an experimental noise reduction material for their deep level tunnels. Was of course all removed. Asbestos roofs on outbuildings and sheds are still common around here.
Fascinating Horror
It definitely seems to be an underlying theme with a lot of the stories I cover!
Ahh… what’s a few hundred thousand lives here or there when you’re raking in millions. Sadly, the real story is man’s inhumanity to man (i.e. Greed, pure & simple)
