Would you like to guess who the world's largest producer of asbestos is? Go ahead, try it. Seriously. Yeah, that's right. It's Russia. This entire situation would be more comical if it weren't so...
Would you like to guess who the world's largest producer of asbestos is? Go ahead, try it. Seriously.
This is unacceptable. According to both the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, heavy exposure to asbestos has been shown to increase the risk of lung cancer and...
This is unacceptable. According to both the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, heavy exposure to asbestos has been shown to increase the risk of lung cancer and mesothelioma. Any loosening of EPA regulations governing the use of asbestos places workers at unnecessary risk, and may create an unnecessary public health hazard.
What the fuck I'm going to see what I can do to make sure that asbestos stays out of my area. Hopefully my state already has something on the books that means this won't change anything.
In May, the EPA released a report detailing its new framework for evaluating the risk of its top prioritized substances. The report states that the agency will no longer consider the effect or presence of substances in the air, ground, or water in its risk assessments.
The SNUR greenlights companies to use toxic chemicals like asbestos without thinking about how it will endanger people who are indirectly in contact with it.
What the fuck
Though the EPA is easing its regulations against using harmful toxins like asbestos, it will largely be the responsibility of local and state governments, as well as companies and informed consumers to counter these federal moves.
I'm going to see what I can do to make sure that asbestos stays out of my area. Hopefully my state already has something on the books that means this won't change anything.
That sentence sounds like it was dictated by industry magnates. Thankfully Scott Pruitt resigned a month ago. Time will tell if trump is able to find someone equally bad to replace him.
That sentence sounds like it was dictated by industry magnates. Thankfully Scott Pruitt resigned a month ago. Time will tell if trump is able to find someone equally bad to replace him.
As corrupt as Pruitt was and with the disclaimer that I 100% prefer to have him gone, the silver lining was that he kept the EPA in the news. I worry his successor--whether it's Wheeler or a new...
As corrupt as Pruitt was and with the disclaimer that I 100% prefer to have him gone, the silver lining was that he kept the EPA in the news. I worry his successor--whether it's Wheeler or a new nominee--will continue dismantling the EPA but quietly. The agency being mired in so many corruption investigations/scandals had to have some kind of magnifying and stagnating effect, and now we have to rely on the severity of the action itself to make news. No problem with that so far though.
Gosh, Trump is really working hard to fuck up the country isn't he? Also, It is good to note that asbestos handled carefully is actually an amazing material in terms of insulation and...
Gosh, Trump is really working hard to fuck up the country isn't he?
Also, It is good to note that asbestos handled carefully is actually an amazing material in terms of insulation and fireproofing. The substance exists in the majority of buildings, with the exception of new constructions and is perfectly safe if left alone. I am not saying we should start using it again, just noting that its existence is more common than people think.
I would say 'perfectly safe until disturbed'. I have a cement bonded asbestos shed roof and an asbestos enhanced artex ceiling texture. The shed roof alone will cost something like 20x the price...
is perfectly safe if left alone.
I would say 'perfectly safe until disturbed'.
I have a cement bonded asbestos shed roof and an asbestos enhanced artex ceiling texture. The shed roof alone will cost something like 20x the price of removing a non-asbestos shed.
The artex we're going to plaster over because removal would generate dust and so require negative pressure venting. At a cost of thousands of pounds.
You simply cannot build things with no plan for disposal, at some point there will be a natural disaster which condemns the building or the building will degrade to the point that it needs structural repair (this one is ~100 years old and had some near misses in WW2). So I agree this stuff was used a huge amount but I wouldn't say it's not a major problem.
At least in the Reddit thread on this same topic, someone pointed out they couldn't find anything saying this in the report. The closest statement they found was that more testing would not be...
In May, the EPA released a report detailing its new framework for evaluating the risk of its top prioritized substances. The report states that the agency will no longer consider the effect or presence of substances in the air, ground, or water in its risk assessments.
At least in the Reddit thread on this same topic, someone pointed out they couldn't find anything saying this in the report. The closest statement they found was that more testing would not be done beyond pre-existing guidelines.
I don't understand why the USA didn't outright ban it like most countries in the 70's. Apparently there are still exemptions which allow manufacturing of it. The health risks are significant if it...
I don't understand why the USA didn't outright ban it like most countries in the 70's. Apparently there are still exemptions which allow manufacturing of it. The health risks are significant if it gets disturbed.
My guess would be that the pressure from the chemical industry was strong enough to stop a complete ban.
HBN’s Board President Bill Walsh said that the chlor-alkali industry is the only industry in the country that still uses asbestos, reportedly importing about 480 tons of the carcinogen each year from Russia and Brazil.
My guess would be that the pressure from the chemical industry was strong enough to stop a complete ban.
On a different note, here's a great article about the town Asbestos by the BBC.. It really was a cost effective building material, and quite fire retardant. It's really a shame that we end up...
It really was a cost effective building material, and quite fire retardant. It's really a shame that we end up having these materials endemic through generations, then the effects start showing up too late. I guess we had a similar situation with CFCs quite recently too.
No but the massive uptake of daylight hue lights with the rise of LED lighting & the increase in screen time screwing up human circadian rhythms seems plausible. Damaged circadian rhythms are also...
No but the massive uptake of daylight hue lights with the rise of LED lighting & the increase in screen time screwing up human circadian rhythms seems plausible.
Damaged circadian rhythms are also a plausible candidate for shift workers having reduced lifespans so whilst there isn't strong evidence for it I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be another one of these 'whoops' technologies.
Grounding is another thing with a vaguely plausible mechanism which currently sounds totally nuts.
There is a controversy about LED lights in general. It is due to low quality rectifier circuits that convert AC to DC. Basically the cheap ones blink too slowly and that can be bad....
There is a controversy about LED lights in general. It is due to low quality rectifier circuits that convert AC to DC. Basically the cheap ones blink too slowly and that can be bad.
To be devil's advocate, asbestos does have some pretty beneficial properties, which is why it was so widely used before its health effects were discovered. After 30 years or so of raising...
To be devil's advocate, asbestos does have some pretty beneficial properties, which is why it was so widely used before its health effects were discovered. After 30 years or so of raising awareness and developing mitigation strategies, maybe now is an appropriate time to develop new asbestos-containing materials that still have good insulating and fire retardant capabilities but without the flakiness and tiny fiber size of the old stuff. This new rule hardly says "Asbestos for everyone!"
I don't know very much about asbestos but my understanding is that it has serious health risks for the workers installing it. Have these new mitigation strategies changed that?
I don't know very much about asbestos but my understanding is that it has serious health risks for the workers installing it. Have these new mitigation strategies changed that?
Well it's been mentioned that the biggest producer of Asbestos is Russia, and I just happen to work in automation field, so I've seen some standards for working with Asbestos. I have never been...
Well it's been mentioned that the biggest producer of Asbestos is Russia, and I just happen to work in automation field, so I've seen some standards for working with Asbestos. I have never been anywhere where it is actually getting produced, but the standards are pretty tight. The human interaction with the material is limited, the factory has to use separate rail tracks that would not go by any other trains, the whole production chain is covered, the tech used for mining uses HEPA filters and so on. I don't think that working with it is any different than working with other hazardous materials, and it is a very cheap, fireproof material. I mean, as we go further into the future and work conditions are improving as well as our protective tech and protocols, why not lift a ban? After all we work with radioactive stuff, carcinogenic stuff and all kinds of harmful materials when there is no alternative to the material in question, so why not that one? It saves money, and its production is cleaner than the production of more complex materials, yet it is fireproof. At some point that economic incentive should make it so that building a better factory for handling asbestos that ensures better worker safety is more profitable than producing more complex materials.
The biggest problem with this is that there isn't really an agreed-upon 'safe' fiber size, though it is worth noting that most of the debate seems to be about whether the 'tiny' fibers are as...
maybe now is an appropriate time to develop new asbestos-containing materials that still have good insulating and fire retardant capabilities but without the flakiness and tiny fiber size of the old stuff
The biggest problem with this is that there isn't really an agreed-upon 'safe' fiber size, though it is worth noting that most of the debate seems to be about whether the 'tiny' fibers are as dangerous, as it is pretty well established that longer fibers are carcinogenic. I don't want to think about how involved a process you'd have to get into in order to ensure every fiber in your product was less than 5 μm, but that would likely be the requirement in order to avoid toxicity according to many studies (though again, this is not something all researchers agree on).
Would you like to guess who the world's largest producer of asbestos is? Go ahead, try it. Seriously.
Yeah, that's right. It's Russia.
This entire situation would be more comical if it weren't so depressing.
Wow! What another in a long line of coincidental connections to Russia from the Trump administration! Man isn't this all so weird?
This is unacceptable. According to both the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, heavy exposure to asbestos has been shown to increase the risk of lung cancer and mesothelioma. Any loosening of EPA regulations governing the use of asbestos places workers at unnecessary risk, and may create an unnecessary public health hazard.
Fortunately, this regulatory change is still in the proposal stage, and is open for public comment until August 10th.
What the fuck
I'm going to see what I can do to make sure that asbestos stays out of my area. Hopefully my state already has something on the books that means this won't change anything.
That sentence sounds like it was dictated by industry magnates. Thankfully Scott Pruitt resigned a month ago. Time will tell if trump is able to find someone equally bad to replace him.
As corrupt as Pruitt was and with the disclaimer that I 100% prefer to have him gone, the silver lining was that he kept the EPA in the news. I worry his successor--whether it's Wheeler or a new nominee--will continue dismantling the EPA but quietly. The agency being mired in so many corruption investigations/scandals had to have some kind of magnifying and stagnating effect, and now we have to rely on the severity of the action itself to make news. No problem with that so far though.
Gosh, Trump is really working hard to fuck up the country isn't he?
Also, It is good to note that asbestos handled carefully is actually an amazing material in terms of insulation and fireproofing. The substance exists in the majority of buildings, with the exception of new constructions and is perfectly safe if left alone. I am not saying we should start using it again, just noting that its existence is more common than people think.
For his next trick, the Department of Energy will recommend a return to leaded gasoline.
Department of Labor will propose tax incentives for child labor.
And an end to enforcement of existing overtime rules.
I would say 'perfectly safe until disturbed'.
I have a cement bonded asbestos shed roof and an asbestos enhanced artex ceiling texture. The shed roof alone will cost something like 20x the price of removing a non-asbestos shed.
The artex we're going to plaster over because removal would generate dust and so require negative pressure venting. At a cost of thousands of pounds.
You simply cannot build things with no plan for disposal, at some point there will be a natural disaster which condemns the building or the building will degrade to the point that it needs structural repair (this one is ~100 years old and had some near misses in WW2). So I agree this stuff was used a huge amount but I wouldn't say it's not a major problem.
At least in the Reddit thread on this same topic, someone pointed out they couldn't find anything saying this in the report. The closest statement they found was that more testing would not be done beyond pre-existing guidelines.
I don't understand why the USA didn't outright ban it like most countries in the 70's. Apparently there are still exemptions which allow manufacturing of it. The health risks are significant if it gets disturbed.
My guess would be that the pressure from the chemical industry was strong enough to stop a complete ban.
A Russian asbestos mining company has put Trumps face on a pallet of asbestos (Guardian) and
direct link to their FB post.
On a different note, here's a great article about the town Asbestos by the BBC..
It really was a cost effective building material, and quite fire retardant. It's really a shame that we end up having these materials endemic through generations, then the effects start showing up too late. I guess we had a similar situation with CFCs quite recently too.
The terrifying thought is what's our modern equivalent. Leeching plastics, Bee killing pesticides, daylight hue lights?
Is there a controversy/issue with daylight hue lights?
No but the massive uptake of daylight hue lights with the rise of LED lighting & the increase in screen time screwing up human circadian rhythms seems plausible.
Damaged circadian rhythms are also a plausible candidate for shift workers having reduced lifespans so whilst there isn't strong evidence for it I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be another one of these 'whoops' technologies.
Grounding is another thing with a vaguely plausible mechanism which currently sounds totally nuts.
There is a controversy about LED lights in general. It is due to low quality rectifier circuits that convert AC to DC. Basically the cheap ones blink too slowly and that can be bad.
https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2012/jul/characterizing-and-minimizing-led-flicker-in-lighting-applications
To be devil's advocate, asbestos does have some pretty beneficial properties, which is why it was so widely used before its health effects were discovered. After 30 years or so of raising awareness and developing mitigation strategies, maybe now is an appropriate time to develop new asbestos-containing materials that still have good insulating and fire retardant capabilities but without the flakiness and tiny fiber size of the old stuff. This new rule hardly says "Asbestos for everyone!"
I don't know very much about asbestos but my understanding is that it has serious health risks for the workers installing it. Have these new mitigation strategies changed that?
Well it's been mentioned that the biggest producer of Asbestos is Russia, and I just happen to work in automation field, so I've seen some standards for working with Asbestos. I have never been anywhere where it is actually getting produced, but the standards are pretty tight. The human interaction with the material is limited, the factory has to use separate rail tracks that would not go by any other trains, the whole production chain is covered, the tech used for mining uses HEPA filters and so on. I don't think that working with it is any different than working with other hazardous materials, and it is a very cheap, fireproof material. I mean, as we go further into the future and work conditions are improving as well as our protective tech and protocols, why not lift a ban? After all we work with radioactive stuff, carcinogenic stuff and all kinds of harmful materials when there is no alternative to the material in question, so why not that one? It saves money, and its production is cleaner than the production of more complex materials, yet it is fireproof. At some point that economic incentive should make it so that building a better factory for handling asbestos that ensures better worker safety is more profitable than producing more complex materials.
The biggest problem with this is that there isn't really an agreed-upon 'safe' fiber size, though it is worth noting that most of the debate seems to be about whether the 'tiny' fibers are as dangerous, as it is pretty well established that longer fibers are carcinogenic. I don't want to think about how involved a process you'd have to get into in order to ensure every fiber in your product was less than 5 μm, but that would likely be the requirement in order to avoid toxicity according to many studies (though again, this is not something all researchers agree on).
Wow