Asbestos is dangerous – everyone knows that virtually. However, a lot of ancestors can’t, lurk where the danger is at home. In each wall, behind each tile, the deadly fibers can get stuck. Those who recognize they have a clear advantage.
Asbestos removal – this is something for public buildings from the 1970s? True! But far from only. The truth is: asbestos fibers can also hide in unexpected places – they are also barely recognisable.
During a simple renovation in your own home very quickly dangerous fiber can reach concentrations in the breathing air. Must be a new window? To be renovated in the bathroom? Are the electric lines? New wooden flooring is to into the room? Basically, Better first on asbestos think!
“Every professional knows Wella best plates, such as are to be found on a number of roof coverings today. The identify for each and every even half-way Trained properly,” says Frank Jansen, from the Association of German engineers (VDI). As simple as it is, however, not always.
To asbestos more: cancer risk in the Baby powder
Plasters, Tile Adhesives, Grouts
Because who guessed that the asbestos can also hide the tile adhesive under the old tiles in the bathroom, in the plaster on the wall, in the spachtelten joints in the plasterboard ceiling, or in and under the old floor covering? Unfortunately, hardly anyone – not even many skilled workers, the civil engineer Jansen’s concerns.
Only ten years ago, the world has become aware that in many tile adhesives, putties and Plasters over decades asbestos fibers beige were mixed.
The make up there, although only a small proportion. Someone edited however, such a wall with the help of grinding machine to lay new tiles – can reach the fibers in the dangerous life of a high concentration in the air.
The dust that arises when such a Work is so fine that it penetrates everything. Asbestos contains fibers, already a low percentage, in order to damage the lungs severely.
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Asbestos – An often invisible dangerA natural Rock
Asbestos is a collective name for several naturally occurring silicate minerals. To do this, Grunerite, Anthophyllite, actinolite and chrysotile. Popular the fibrous Material was in both construction and in industry because of its durability, fire resistance and because it was in cement.
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Asbestos – An often invisible dangerTiny fibers under the electron microscope
Typical of asbestos, its tiny fibers that are only three microns. Here is a chrysotile sample. These fibers are not soluble and, therefore, under certain circumstances, for a very long time in the lungs. There you can trigger even after decades of cancer.
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Asbestos – An often invisible dangerDon’t touch that!
Wella best must not be sawn, cut, drilled, sanded, or broken. As long as you don’t touch him, there is no danger that fibers will be released into the air. But self-Cleaning is off-limits: anyone Who tries to remove the Moss with the pressure washer, commits already sacrilege to the environment and endangers his own health.
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Asbestos – An often invisible dangerNothing for the trash
A flower box made of fibre cement, Eternit or asbestos-cement. Cement and asbestos combine to create a resistant, but also toxic building materials. This case may continue to be planted. However, one should not be at work with the shovel and the rake, careful not to scratch the vessel. Who wants to get rid of him, it must to to waste.
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Asbestos – An often invisible dangerToxic Flooring
Such Floor-Flex plates are to be found today in many homes. Almost all contain asbestos. Security can also bring here a laboratory sample. So don’t just pluck out and throw them in the garbage. Often, these floor coverings also fixed with asbestos-containing glue. Be careful not independent grind!
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Asbestos – An often invisible dangerChic collector’s item or a special waste?
Probably more of a case for the special waste. In any case, you should use an older hair dryer – not from the 1970s. What has this to do with a hair-dryer with asbestos? The fabric is extremely heat resistant and would be used in the production of this ancient device as a heat protection.
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Asbestos – An often invisible dangerVintage Design is better than Vintage scrap
It may be on the up again, but who wants to eat his toast from a elegant Toaster, better on a new Retro Look. There is not, then ensure at least that the support for the heating wires made of asbestos. Also unused in the antique Cabinet, the unit has lost nothing more.
Many artisans do not know the danger
Even Jansen, who has published in 2015 with the VDI and the Association of Harmful substances a discussion paper on the issue, was the extent of the asbestos contamination, is initially not aware of: “I have made the study an apprenticeship as a tiler. When I got through my work at the VDI with the subject, I thought for the first time: Au weia!”
The risk can basically plug in any building that was built before the turn of the Millennium. “In addition, there is no house in the not time somewhere anything repaired has been,” Jansen’s concerns.
Although asbestos-related lung cancer, already in 1942, it was recognized in Germany as an occupational disease, but only in 1995, and the fuel in Germany and Europe in 2005 was banned. That’s why it took so long, until the world was on the less visible asbestos materials carefully.
Decades later, the deadly
“The Work of rights activists have looked at the first of the asbestos, which is obvious, and most frequently in building materials or other products used,” recalls Thomas Kuhlbusch, group leader of the expert group on the management of hazardous substances of the Federal Institute for work protection and work medicine.
“The Eternit panels, facade claddings, roofs that have been built with asbestos materials and also fire protection cardboard and textiles. Less important products, in which only small amounts of asbestos have been processed, or in which the asbestos was not visible at all were in the beginning.”
It usually takes a very long time to workers exposed to asbestos dust develop. “We now have deaths due to asbestos of people who were exposed 40 years ago to the fabric,” says Kuhlbusch. The tiny fibers survive for very bubbles a long time in the lungs. You are not broken and can still call after decades of inflammation. “Asbestos is still a common cause of work-related illnesses and deaths,” says Kuhlbusch.
In Europe, asbestos has been banned since 2005. Especially in Asia, the substance is used, however, even today, a lot of.
No reason to panic
As a craftsman, a tenant or a property owner, it is particularly important to how to identify asbestos and deal with, says the chemist Kuhlbusch. To dramatize the Problem, not helping.
Asbestos is a mineral found naturally in the environment and can be everywhere in the air to demonstrate. “Studies show that 75 to 130 fibres per cubic metre of air are present,” explains Kuhlbusch. These fibers, we all breathe constantly. But why not get a long time each lung cancer.
It means that even a single asbestos fiber is sufficient to causing cancer. This is not to say, however, that each of the inhaled fiber inevitably leads to cancer.
Kuhlbusch compares it with a huge wall, in which a thin water line: “When I meet a nail in the wall smash: what is the probability that the water pipe?”
The risk of cancer increases with the concentration of fibers in the air, and also with the length of time that someone is exposed to the substance.
This means that A low exposure means a death sentence. The less, however, with asbestos, the better. Anyone who recognizes him can avoid him. And with the right measures – such as the use of devices that the dangerous dust is one eye, the risk can be effectively reduced.