Asbestos - Final Rule
Starting in a large automotive iron (ferrous) foundry in 1976, I use to see Asbestos all the time! It was as natural to see it as seeing dust & sand in a foundry back then. Heck we wore suits of asbestos around molten iron (>3000 degrees F). On the sprue line I wore Asbestos Gloves to assist my crew picking up 900 degree castings. Asbestos was everywhere, on and in all our furnaces (Melting, Pouring, and Heat Treat - refractory linings) all the miles and miles of piping, roofs, machines, and as I said, a lot of our PPE. Soon thereafter we started to become aware of the danger from Asbestos.
In my 14 years I saw the very occasional use of a dust mask but never remember seeing any respirators (our Fire Team did have SCBA systems). I remember well sitting in the Salary Locker Room after my shift coughing and sneezing up & out a towel full of Green Sand and other "stuff" each night. I remember seeing our retirees walking around town, almost all would be pulling an O2 bottle behind them. (I would wonder if that would be me 30-40 years later).
I have not been in an Iron Foundry in many years. I imagine with what few are left the working conditions are better! (Are they?)
I was reminded of all this when I read this article from "EHS Daily Advisor" on the EPA's Final Rule on Asbestos. The article has a link (below) from the Federal Registry on the actual rule.
https://ehsdailyadvisor.blr.com/2023/10/final-asbestos-rule-requires-reporting-on-all-types-of-asbestos/?source=EHollowSDA&effort=4&utm_source=BLR&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=EHSDAEmail
Let's say we really knew the danger of asbestos by 1980. If so, it only took about 43 years for a "Final Rule!"
Comments (6)
PS at 69 (almost 70), I have some relatively minor health concerns, but no respiratory problems (Praise the Lord). I spent 4 of my 14 years with the company in Personnel/HR and I spent 4 years at another machining plant so actually was only in the foundry environment full-time for 7 years. I left the foundry at age 36 and been in machining and assembly since, "cleaner" environments. i probably go out before it caused me any big harm.
Working in Personnel/HR I worked a lot with the retirees as part of my job. As I said above almost all pulled around O2 bottles as they all had Silicosis. If they were smokers they almost always had emphysema too. Some would develop Lung Cancer. Retirees that has worked primarily in Heat Treat and Melt always seemed to develop cancer. Since these employees spent a good share of their work time on Furnace Repair the reason for that became clearer the more we learned about Asbestos Hazards. Refractory bricks and motar mix have a high concentration on Asbestos. Refractory is used to line the furnace linings to keep molten or hot iron away from the steel sides of the equipment (it also insulates the heat inside). Refractory motar is a fine white powder before it is mixed with water to hold the bricks in place. (ALL the water must be then dried before molten iron touches it! If not you get an explosion!).
The company itself went totally bankrupt about 8 years after I left! Partly is went bankrupt due to all the law suits that were brought against them for respiratory problems! It was in business for over 100 years, and covered over a million square feet. When I first started there we had over 3000 employees. Today it is a huge cement slab and an environmental wasteland! I do get a small pension form my service there. However, that comes from Federal Government Agency that takes over pension plans from bankrupt companies. Very Sad!
Unfortunately we knew of the dangers of asbestos way before 1980. Pliny the Elder wrote of face coverings that Roman slaves would wear and described asbestos related diseases.
More recently, in the 1890s Austrian and British doctors described pulmonary diseases attributed to asbestos exposure. Asbestos related fibrosis was diagnosed in 1906 in a 33 year old. In 1924 this disease was named asbestosis. The real evidence that the health effects were known is that by 1910 insurance companies in the US decreased coverage and raised rates for workers in the asbestos industry.
But hey, if corporations weren't willing to sacrifice their workers to make a buck, none of us would be in this career field, so I guess we should thank them.
PFAS is the new Asbestos. We use it for everything and we have known the risk for years.