Comment by mapt
13 hours ago
100 years ago, asbestos was the new wonder material, and "We added asbestos to stuff" was a very common marketing bullet point for building materials. It found its way into flooring, mastic, the predecessors to drywall, ceiling texture, insulation, and anything and everything used near a combustion appliance.
Literally just, take a process that used to use sand or horsehair or whatever filler, and add a significant portion by mass of asbestos powder instead.
I wonder if there are studies on the lives saved by asbestos's fireproofing feature vs. cost by its lung-disease-causing feature.
Answering my own question: the WHO estimates it costs 200K lives per year. No estimates on the other side, but that's a big number to overcome...
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/asbestos
I’m not sure if it’s still the case but I searched of alibaba once and found huge rolls of asbestos for sale and massive supply capacity numbers. It was pretty shocking.
It's still used in the industry. And it can be used safely, as long as you follow the precautions (handling, encapsulation) and mind the lifecycle. But China being China? Haha no.
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