politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I'm a bit surprised USA didn't ban it earlier. But then I looked at our own history, and although Asbestos was banned from some uses like clothing already in 1972, it was only gradually banned from other uses through 20 years where the ban became complete in 1993. So although USA is late to the party, it did take a long time here too.
I remember there was a huge outrage here about asbestos back in the 70's, and I thought the ban was complete already back then.
But there is a huge difference in how dangerous it is, in some building materials it's apparently relatively safe, that is until it has to be replaced, that's the dangerous part, where you should be very careful and not do it without careful research on how to do it safely first, maybe preferably hire professionals.
I remember many years where car brakes whined because asbestos was banned. I wonder how much of that crap was in the air in our cities before that.
(Denmark)
Asbestos is safe in the same way old crates of TNT are. That is as long as it remains completely undisturbed and you're nowhere near it. Also much like old crates of TNT when discovered safely removing it involves a very expensive call to highly specialized removal teams and there's a high risk of collateral damage in the process.
Much of it was banned 50 years ago. In 1973 the US used about 800,000 tons of the stuff and by 2023 that was down to ~1,000 tons. The US via the EPA did try and fully ban it back in 1989 when George H.W. Bush was President but a Federal Judge in the 5th Circuit Court blocked the EPA's effort. So instead we ended up with "almost completely banned".
Anyway the specific type that was still legal, the one in the article, has some specialty uses such as creating Sodium Chloride which is necessary for water treatment plants. Chrysotile asbestos still has an exemption in Canada, and other countries, for that very reason.
Ideally we would have had it completely banned back in '89 or at least by the mid 2000's like the EU countries but there is some nuance here.
1993 is 30 years ago tho
Stop pls it hurts
The 20 is referring to the period between 1972 and 1993
So, plastics maybe phased out by 2078 then?