Still killing people, and the government still hasn’t acted: Britain’s hidden asbestos epidemic | Tom White
HEileen Boone was diagnosed with asbestos-related cancer in 2021. She was 38 years old. The type of cancer, mesothelioma, is incurable; The best prognosis is a few years, although most people do not spend that long. “You always think of asbestos as a disease from decades ago – affecting men who worked in heavy industry – so to be diagnosed in your 30s is shocking.” She told the Northern Echo In 2022. I want to see my children grow up but now I have to come to terms with the idea that this may not happen. Sadly, Boone passed away in November last year, just three years after being diagnosed with her condition.
For most people, the word “asbestos” will conjure earlier eras: dusty Victorian and Edwardian factories; shipyards in the interwar period; Post-war construction sites. However, asbestos was not banned in the UK until 1999. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), it still kills around 5,000 people every year. Many anti-asbestos activists believe this figure is a gross underestimate, and that the true total is Closer to 20,000. Mesothelioma has a long latency period: anything from 15 to 40 years. Helen Boone may have been exposed to asbestos at school, at the college where she studied to become a critical care physician, or at the two hospitals where she later worked.
Bones are part of what is known as The third wave of asbestos deaths. The first wave were those who worked directly with asbestos in mines and factories. The second wave were those who worked with or near the material: shipyard and railway workers, builders and other tradesmen and engineers. The third wave includes all those who were exposed to the deterioration or disruption of asbestos-containing materials, releasing millions of fibers into the air, without anyone seeing them. If the first and second waves constitute a horrific professional disaster, the third wave is a large-scale environmental and infrastructural disaster.
About 6 million tons of asbestos were imported into Britain Between 1870 and 1999. Most of it remained hidden behind walls and ceilings, embedded in cement roofs and pipes, and woven through textiles. British companies used two particularly harmful species: crocidolite and amosite, which were mined in South Africa. british companies, Cape plc Turner and Newall, the most important, relied on British imperial dominance, and later apartheid, to keep mining costs low and profits high.
Thanks to the efforts of anti-asbestos activists and trade unionists, asbestos use declined dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s, before it was finally banned in 1999. But the ban was not accompanied by a coordinated removal program. The beginning of the new millennium should have been the moment to reckon with asbestos. Instead, the substance fell from view, and its ban gave the impression that it was a solved problem. A lot of asbestos has been removed over the past 25 years. There are many decent companies that abide by the law and operate safely. There are also a lot of Cowboy clothing That cuts corners and puts its workers and the public at risk.
Much of the asbestos remains in place and is far beyond its intended design life. Asbestos Control Regulations 2012 They operate on the basis that risks are low if the material is undamaged and left undisturbed. This policy site Management is bad in theory and worse in practice. A recent audit by the National Organization of Asbestos Consultants and the Asbestos Consulting and Testing Association found that “of 128,761 buildings… inspected over a six-month period, 78% contained asbestos,” and that “71% of registered asbestos elements… were damaged”; 30% were in the highest risk category, requiring immediate removal.
The regulations place much of the burden on the “duty holder” responsible for monitoring asbestos-containing materials and providing information to building users in an asbestos management plan. However, in many cases, instead of living documentation, these plans are left to gather dust in a drawer. The regulations do not differentiate by building type, although studies have shown that the risk of developing mesothelioma and lung cancer increases significantly for those who are They are exposed when they are young. There is no distinction made by type of asbestos, although amosite and crocidolite are known to be particularly dangerous.
There are countries that have chosen to address this challenge. In 2016, the South Korean Ministry of Education ordered that asbestos be removed from all schools by 2027. The government allocated 2.872 trillion won (£1.8 billion) to the programme. Australian Asbestos and Silica Safety and Elimination Agency It was established in 2013 and coordinates a multi-phased national strategic plan to eliminate future cases of asbestos-related diseases in the country.
The HSE appears to be moving in this direction, although it has not yet set a clear time frame. In June, it published the all-party parliamentary group on occupational safety and health a report On Cape Heritage Plc. In addition to calling on Cape’s parent company, Altrad, to pay £10 million into research into asbestos-related cancer, the group reiterated the need for the government to commit to a national asbestos removal programme.
The persistent presence of asbestos in schools, hospitals, housing and various other buildings represents not only a technical and logistical challenge, but also a challenge to the political imagination. In the face of worsening social and environmental crises, the call to demolish and rebuild cannot simply be a call to replace what was there before, only without asbestos. Rather, it implies a different kind of society with properly funded education and healthcare sectors, comprehensive modernization programmes, and well-resourced local councils that train and manage their own asbestos removal teams.
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Given its self-imposed fiscal rules and a general lack of an objective and positive vision for the country, it seems unlikely that a Labor government would come up with such a program on its own. If Britain’s asbestos disaster is to be tackled, coalitions of activists, trade unions and tenants’ rights groups will be crucial. In the 1970s and 1980s, similar coalitions took control of a powerful industry and succeeded Recasting asbestos as a pressing public health risk. Now, as before, change will come from below, or not at all.
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Tom White is a writer and educationist. Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster, His first book was published by Repeater