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Someone at work got a new office. He decided he wanted a second door and tunneled through the wall to make it.
(hexbear.net)
This wall was to the supply room with all of the uniforms and PPE. The building was constructed in the mid-20th century so it turns out it's full of asbestos. Thanks mole man.
Over 80% of all mesothelioma cases are caused by asbestos
Asbestos fibres are 10x thinner than fibreglass fibres (N95 is useless) and can stay airborne basically forever, we spray what's called a "lockdown ecapsulant" in the air that basically just grabs every fibre and bit of dust in the air then glues it to the floor.
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My big fear with this is that it's almost certainly flooding the HVAC system now, but there's no official posting beyond this sign and the office staff seem to think it's fine. Who would I anonymously contact in the US for an inspection? Is that regulated at the state level or by the EPA?
Always start with OSHA for anything in a workplace
OSHA (https://www.osha.gov/form/osha7) and/or the EPA's Asbestos Ombudsman (https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/forms/contact-us-about-asbestos)
I live in Canada unfortunately so idk
Talk to your union, generally before any government org
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Asbestos, much like jigsaw in the movie saw, doesn't kill you. It makes your body kill itself just by being indestructible. Your body sends cells to break it down, the cells die and turn into scar tissue. The asbestos just wants to live in your lungs.
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i'd be very chill and simply accept my new lung roomate
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A company mining the vast majority of vermiculite at the time, an ostensibly safe loose fill insulation product, "accidentally" mined an asbestos vein at the same time so now all vermiculite is considered asbestos contaminated because as a loose fill product you can't get an accurate reading of the concentration of a foreign substance
Uhhhhh wow wish I knew this earlier.
As a pool guy in a previous life I really fucking wish I did too
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Asbestos was open pit mined with dynamite meaning our atmosphere has a small amount of ambient asbestos fibres still and meaning that a clean air clearance for abatement is not 0 fibres/cc it's 0.02
This is like listening to a goopy-doopy gory details crime podcast that's been pared down the bone to be 15 second chunks.
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If you eat asbestos, it gets into your bloodstream and lodges itself wherever it feels like. You may think "who would eat asbestos?" But in my training I've seen pictures of old school insulators sitting on asbestos blocks with hands covered in asbestos based mastic eating a sandwich bare handed.
Bonus: there is a town in Quebec that only VERY recently changed its name from Asbestos to something lame idk what honestly. They stopped mining asbestos in 2019 or maybe 2016 i forget
They almost reopened the mine in Asbestos, the Quebec Liberal Party had a deal all ready to reopen it with government money in an attempt to appeal to blue-collar workers. But the Parti Quebecois (the socdem party) won the election before they could implement it and diverted the money to economic diversification programs.
i can't believe you'd slander a tasty snack like this
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The world trade centre building's structural steel had sprayed on fireproofing made from asbestos up to the 50th floor I want to say. Making the 9/11 attacks the largest asbestos exposure in history lasting days and days because of how long the dust took to settle
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Canada historically was one of the largest exporters worldwide. Until 2020 Canada still exported asbestos to India and China where it's still used in industrial applications. I saw video of people unloading fluffy asbestos with shovels wearing paper face masks in India This was 2019. Asbestos fibres are approximately 50x thinner than a human hair so a pair mask may as well not exist if you have even the smallest amount of facial hair stubble
Holy shit death to Canada
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Asbestos still accounts for the majority of workplace related injury and death at least here because of the long delay (10-50 years) between exposure and asbestosis/mesothelioma