Asbestos Warning

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At work the other day, my compnay put up an warning in our break room waring of asbestos around the some of the work areas. Do you guys think I should ignore this or, leave this place ASAP?

J.C.

You need to find out more. If asbestos forms part of a solid structure (ie textured plaster 'artex') and is painted over its not supposedly dangerous, but if its exposed and disturbed (scraped, bashed, open to the elements) then fibres get released into the atmosphere, so it becomes dangerous.

Unless you live in a recently built town, its likely that you walk past it every day without realising. For example; in the UK the corrugated board thats used on garden sheds and warehouses is 30% asbestos. Textured ceilings built before 85 may have 5%. Storage heaters before the late 70s use it. Plastic floor tiles and wall panels may have it. When awareness of its dangers spread in the 70s or 80s the price dropped & so builders started using more of it! - even in places where its unique properties werent useful (places you wouldnt suspect without having researched it).

In austrailia it should be taken especially seriously as the most dangerous form (out of 6) originates from there.

Psych is right about asbestos.

As long as it is undamaged it is not dangerous, only after damaging or removing it.
And it is all over the place, they even have used it as road covering.

The office I used to work in is being renovated and we had to leave because there was asbestos being removed. But we had official information about the period before, they also warned us. Propably some liability thing.

Ha - you're lucky! At my work they sectioned off the floor in half - we worked on one half while the renovated the other half. After they finished our floor they realized the 1940s building had asbestos in it (how was this surprising?), so those of us on the floor were exposed to any flying asbestos particles. Now they tell us we're *probably* not going to be affected by it, but we can reduce our risks of lung cancer by not smoking.

Gee, thanks.

Supposedly you're only really at risk of asbestos-related cancer if you work with it all the time and inhale the dust partices as you work. A few of the older people at my work talked about how they used to play with asbestos as kids (before we knew it was so dangerous), so apparently it's not that big of a deal.