One thing I think most Western people don't realize, especially with how terrified we are of asbestos, is that it is still used and being mined today!

Russia still extensively uses Abestos, the name literally comes from the Russian town of Asbest which is known for exporting, you guessed it, asbestos, to countries like China, India, and Brazil. Of course being Russian they also say it's a Western lie that Asbestos causes lung issues. (I shouldn't have to say this but I'm noting this, and not advocating it's true, asbestos is serious business and I wouldn't want to live in a building with it, it's just interesting that BRICS nations still use it).

• meindnoch

  today at 12:17 PM

  As they say, the main export of Russia is suffering. Both figuratively and literally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3piCUPIkc

  • jiggawatts

    today at 12:40 PM

    Of all the many, many things Trump has said and done, the thing that has stuck in my mind the most is back during his first term there was a period of time where he blocked the banning of the use of asbestos.

    Because, of course he did, because he’s just that kind of person.

    This prompted a manufacturer in Asbest to use his likeness in their branding.

    Behold! TRUMP asbestos: https://x.com/ewg/status/1022134130052669447

    I… as an outside observer from an allied country, how… I mean seriously… how did you yanks decide you wanted four more years of this!?

    • hammock

      today at 12:49 PM

      Trump’s EPA had a plan to reconsider a 2024 ban on chrysotile asbestos, but that was pulled back in July and the EPA will indeed preserve and defend the ban.

• gruez

  today at 12:48 PM

  >the name literally comes from the Russian town of Asbest which is known for exporting, you guessed it, asbestos

  Seems incorrect.

  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/asbestos

  Etymology

  From Old French abestos, from Latin asbestos, itself from Ancient Greek ἄσβεστος (ásbestos, “unquenchable, inextinguishable”), from ᾰ̓- (ă-, “not”) + σβέννῡμῐ (sbénnūmĭ, “I quench, quell”).

> My Dad lost his Dad at the age of 34, which is no age at all in the grand scheme of things. By contrast I still have my Dad at the age of 60, which has meant an extra quarter century of guidance, support, advice, love and always being there. How lucky am I?

I lost my father when I was 30. I thought I’d been lucky because I’d had him through my “adult” life. Now I’m 40 and have a 2-year-old son, and over these past ten years I think it’s when I would have most liked to have him — when more questions came up about what he was really like as a person, beyond his role as a father. He died at 72 from lung cancer; he had been smoking since he was 13 and never went to the doctor. I guess I was lucky after all…

• tendencydriven

  today at 11:40 AM

  Oof, this one hits home.

  I lost my Dad when I was 27, he had just turned 60. Also lung cancer, also smoking since a child, also had never visited the doctor.

  In the 5 years since then, I've met the love of my life, gotten engaged, and planning a family. All of this without my Dad, without his advice, without his support. It hurts, a lot. Whenever big moments in my life happen, my first instinct is always to give him a call.

  • zeristor

    today at 12:44 PM

    Dad lost to smoking too at 60, but heart disease. As I grew through life I could relate to my memories of him at those ages, but as I come up to 60 myself I’m daunted not to have my memories of him at later ages as a guide.

• today at 12:30 PM

• noduerme

  today at 11:09 AM

  You gotta do what you can do - take the best of what you remember from your parents and grandparents, and pass it on. I don't feel like they're really dead as long as I'm alive. I hear their voices and their jokes and I see their smiles. Sometimes when I laugh I hear how my grandpa laughed, and I think, shit, I must sound old now. Kids make you realize how temporary we all are.

• iamacyborg

  today at 11:53 AM

  I was 6 when my dad died, next year I’ll be the same age he was when he died (38). Life’s weird.

• irjustin

  today at 10:42 AM

  Overall we're having kids later and later myself included. This is one of the natural consequences I will face. Sometimes I wish it had kids in my twenties but for now I'm glad I didn't. We'll see.

  • p0w3n3d

    today at 11:04 AM

    The best age for having kids biologically, in terms of health is... Close to 18. I had my first child when I was 27 and I was already very tired in the nights, we agreed with wife that it would have been better to start earlier. Some people have kids when 35-40 and I cannot imagine it at all. I'm too tired right now. Much wiser, but my health would not allow me to stay up nights

    • irjustin

      today at 11:57 AM

      Biologically yes... Probably but maturity, stability wise closer to 30-35 seems to be pretty good. At least the going rate amongst my friends

      • TeMPOraL

        today at 12:06 PM

        That's an environmental factor, though, specifically a function of our modern life style.

        We had our first child at ~30, so we track this trend, too. However, I sometimes think, what if we gave in to the biological trend and[0] had kids at 18-20? If that were the common trend, then... by the time i got 36, my kids would be on their way to starting their own families. I.e. my child-rearing day would've been over, right here, today. As it is, I'm about to turn 37, and am looking forward to some 15 more years of parenting.

        No, I really am looking forward to this. But the point is, the life after parenting doesn't sound so appealing anymore, not when it starts at 50 instead of 36.

        --

        [0] - Subject to the typical rules about age of adulthood, to not overcomplicate this.

    • seper8

      today at 11:55 AM

      Buddy if you're 27 and already describe your life as very tired, there's more going on than pure aging...

      • p0w3n3d

        today at 12:12 PM

        no I'm almost twice that. I'm saying that if I had children in 40s it would be impossible for me.

      • MattRix

        today at 12:07 PM

        I mean yeah, that’s literally what he’s saying: He’s saying he’s very tired because of his children, especially how they keep him up at night.

The ending is in praise of dads. Wonderful. I lost my dad when I was 8. I still miss him every day. It’s hard to know beforehand how cool it is to watch your kids grow and change. I hope I get to see how cool my kids are in their old age.

Here’s to workers rights and living longer.

It comes up a lot on the diyuk subreddit so they have pinned mega thread about it. I like it to give a little balance to the conversation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DIYUK/comments/133jq4r/the_is_this_...

• Etheryte

  today at 10:43 AM

  I don't really think asbestos is something that needs balance to the conversation. It's like radioactive material, you will most likely not even know that you've had too much exposure until your health is already permanently affected. The illness may manifest a considerable time later so you might not even know what it was. It's very easy to unknowingly be exposed when e.g. renovating a house or other similar arrangements because there is no easy visual way to identify materials containing asbestos.

  • Atomic_Torrfisk

    today at 11:53 AM

    It absolutely does need balance. Many, if not most older pre 1980 houses in (Norway where I live) have some form of Asbestos in some form, e.g. Eternit, window putty, jointing putty, AIB around fireplaces, or textured paint. Usually these materials are fine if left in place, and it is tricky to avoid these materials when looking for housing since older homes make up a large fraction of our housing stock, especially in my kommune up north.

    My own house probably contains some Asbestos, but getting an asbestos survey is very expensive, prohibitively so for people earning the average salary. Not to mention if asbestos is found, it is a further expense to get it removed and cleaned up. The best I can do is send a sample in for testing if I find something risky while renovating myself. Most contractors up here do no care at all if something looks like it may be ACM.

    The best thing we can do for people is to provide balanced guidance on where asbestos may be and how much risk does it pose. AIB like Asbestolux is way more dangerous than Eternit is and depending on the location Eternit can remain in place.

    Unfortunately if we were to take a zero tolerance approach it would cause more harm than good. How do people pay for remediation? do we all abandon our homes? what happens to the farmers who cannot move? I have no perfect answer here. Asbestos is a hazard no question, but what can we do other than common sense and balance?

    • ndsipa_pomu

      today at 12:17 PM

      The problem with not taking a "zero tolerance" approach is that the problem isn't going to go away. As you say, the asbestos including materials are often best left untouched rather than being removed by a DIYer which may well release the fibres into the air. However, that's just kicking the can down the road as at some point the house will need renovating or rebuilding and that's when the asbestos fibres will be released.

      As always, it ends up cheaper to just chuck dangerous materials into the wider environment rather than dealing with them in a responsible manner. It's a shame that we can't retroactively penalise the builders that used so much asbestos.

      • cts-i-cts-d

        today at 12:44 PM

        You can’t punish retroactively, Lex retro non agit. It’s the lawmakers that create the environment we all work inside of to maximize our profits. There’s probably at least 3 as dangerous as asbestos materials used in current day and we are yet to find out.

        Zero tolerance means paralysis, it’s a naive ideal. Look at the recent medical technologies where zero tolerance for unwanted side effects has to be balanced with benefits.

        What isn’t a trade-off?

  • jojobas

    today at 12:17 PM

    Unlike radiation, there's no safe asbestos exposure, if you're really unlucky a single strand can screw you up. On the other hand, of all people having worked at asbestos facilities with early 20th century approach to PPE only 20% developed mesothelioma and 10% died from it.

    Thinking before swinging your drill will get most people safe enough not to worry about it.

I recently came across this unfortunate promotion for asbestos from back in the day:

https://imgur.com/V1QcX7I

• bjobjobjo

  today at 10:35 AM

  And I just found this related passage in the Wikipedia article:

  > More than 1,000 tons of asbestos are thought to have been released into the air following the buildings' destruction.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos

• beejiu

  today at 10:43 AM

  It's unfortunate this article is about the UK and Imgur has blocked the UK because of the Online Safety Act :(

  • sva_

    today at 10:49 AM

    I wouldn't blame Imgur for that, but the UK gov + people who elected them/didn't resist.

    • monooso

      today at 11:36 AM

      Pray tell, precisely how should we have resisted?

    • rwmj

      today at 10:56 AM

      All parties supported the OSA (and it's surprisingly popular too) because "something must be done [about the internet], this is something, so this must be done".

      It's hardly the stupidest thing British people have voted for in the last two decades, probably not even in the top 5.

      • ndsipa_pomu

        today at 12:22 PM

        Well, we didn't exactly vote for the Online Safety Act. It was introduced by the Tories in 2023 and despite them being voted out in 2024, Labour (Tory-lite) decided to push ahead with the implementation of the draconian law.

        However, I don't doubt that a lot of the UK would vote for such a law as most people have a knee-jerk reaction to "won't anyone think of the children?".

    • beejiu

      today at 10:50 AM

      Oh yes, please don't think I was blaming Imgur!

• jabl

  today at 10:54 AM

  Asbestos was also used as 'fake snow'. Famously the snow scene in the 'Wizard of Oz' movie was 100% pure asbestos.

Relatedly, Asbestos used to be a place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val-des-Sources

Attempts to reopen the mine and sell asbestos to the developing world under a new brand caught the attention of the Daily Show leading to some train wreck coverage that ultimately led to them changing the name of the town.

I know its not fashionable, but things like asbestos is the point of regulation.

If you ignore the health effects, asbestos is a fucking brilliant material, strong(if used with a binder) exceptionally fireproof, UV stable and fairly inert.

Why _wouldn't_ you use it? To use modern parlance; only melts wouldn't use it, thats who (this message brought to you by your friendly corporate sponsor...)

The problem is that it still kills now[1]. Because its a time bomb, with a dwell time of well over 10-20 years, its very lard to pin point the cause.

The only way that its _stopped_ being put into building materials is through regulation. The problem now for us, especailly in the UK is the power of regulation is being ablated through incompetence, funding cuts and a concerted effort by those who stand to benefit from a weakened regulatory system.

Most regulation is formed from the blood of victims. We may not _like_ what the regulation is, and lord knows it needs improving. But to not have it, or worst, have it and not be enforced, is a terrible state of affairs.

[1]https://neu.org.uk/latest/library/what-real-risk-asbestos-sc...

• jabl

  today at 11:05 AM

  Luckily thanks to regulation the use of asbestos in new builds has almost completely been eliminated (I'm sure there are some uses somewhere where it's indispensable?), but there's of course a huge number of places where it turns up in all kinds of renovation projects.

  In addition to buildings, e.g. ships. Think about a steamship, what material that is fireproof and doesn't rot do you think they used for insulating boilers and steam pipes? One museum ship I'm somewhat familiar with ripped out all the asbestos insulation and replaced it with IIRC mostly mineral or glass wool during a major renovation some years back, just to make it safer for the mostly volunteers who dedicate their time to keep the ship functioning.

  • cjrp

    today at 11:54 AM

    Ships, especially navy ships, have lead to lots of mesothelioma cases in later life.

• DrewADesign

  today at 10:47 AM

  Our business leaders have successfully painted shortsightedness, greed, and nihilism as beneficial business traits embraced by adults willing to accept life’s difficult realities.

  In reality, only personal and group morality protected our society from such forces, and letting ethics retard profit and growth became seriously uncool in the 80s hippie backlash.

• jaccola

  today at 12:09 PM

  Would you buy a product with asbestos in if it wasn't regulated against? (Assuming we removed all similar regulation so the lack of regulation does not its self imply safety.)

  Of course you wouldn't.

  We have journalists to uncover dangers like this; they are clearly financially incentivised to do so. We have courts to assess damages. We don't need government regulation.

  Such a common trope that "the heartless capitalist doesn't care about harming customers so we need the government to save us". Of course the capitalist cares about harming customers, she needs to sell to them (and their competitors product will be much more successful if it is not harmful!).

  And, in either case, regulation or free market will only save us if there are viable alternatives. Fossil fuels still kill people, but we don't regulate against it because there is currently no viable alternative.

  • gausswho

    today at 12:26 PM

    Would you buy a product with asbestos in it if its presence wasn't disclosed? You might, if it provided value vs alternatives.

    Manufacturers are successuful when they sell. If their product is found dangerous they a) deny and muddy the waters, b) settle lawsuits and if that doesn't work c) close up shop and open a new business. Customer unwelfare is a cost of business.

  • rcMgD2BwE72F

    today at 12:33 PM

    >currently no viable alternative

    So false.

I posted diamondgeezer’s blog post on High Street to HackerNews some time ago, and he was most bemused by the HackerNews effect on his website.

I’ve also just posted his great article on British Summer Time, I would have that would have been more popular;

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45710093

Even if OT, I would take the chance to remember the great sicilian hacker Asbesto, that I never had the honour to know personally, for what represented for the hacker culture in Italy. And for his aweson woodcraft mastery. May R.I.P.

Plenty of people die from asbestos exposure when renovating their house.

• rwmj

  today at 10:52 AM

  Our house has an asbestos flue in the bathroom. I'm very careful never to go near that thing, and never ever to cut/drill/attempt to remove it myself. But I wonder how many people would never know it was asbestos.

  • sgt

    today at 11:22 AM

    If you leave asbestos alone it's safe, and if you need to drill into it, use shaving cream so that the fibers don't get into the air. It's not a big deal if you are careful. But don't be reckless - you need to know what you are drilling into and do it slowly.

• Atomic_Torrfisk

  today at 11:59 AM

  Source? Usually it is just tradesmen who worked with it directly, or their wives.

• yanslookup

  today at 11:48 AM

  This is not factual.

  Asbestos is not kryptonite. One time exposure is not going to have short term or long term impact to your health.

  There is a lot of FUD around asbestos, check out all of the panicked posts on reddit.

• hanspeter

  today at 11:17 AM

  This is an interesting claim.

  How many is plenty and what are the sources to back this?

Asbestos is genuinely more terrifying then nuclear radiation.

If something is radioactive then a Geiger counter will tell you at a distance, it'll even triangulate it.

Asbestos? It can be everywhere and the only way to know is to collect samples, pay $100 a piece to a lab to do phase contrast microscopy and wait.

Then do it again the next time you find something suspicious.

And once you've cleaned it out..well hope your handling was good coz who knows if you got it all - without collecting a lot of samples and testing again.

My house has a few asbestos pieces, and in digging up the yard I've pulled a huge amount of asbestos fiber cement from cheap renovations by previous owners - the stuff was about 10 cm below the surface.

• CheeseFromLidl

  today at 10:13 AM

  Its carcinogenic “modus operandi” is also completely different to anything else. Asbestos is chemically inert, so how does is cause cancer? The tiny crystalline needles puncture cells, sometimes during cell division, and strands of dna will get tangled up and result in messed up genetics.

  • Aldipower

    today at 10:34 AM

    Yes and I would like to add, it is all about the "dose". It is a common misconception that tangled DNA will automatically lead to spreading cancer. Per day a normal person develops tangled up dna cells in the hundreds, that is a normal process, but the immune system can handle it without problems and can get rid of it (unfortunately not always). So with Asbestos it is all about the dose too. Although a relative small amount could be already _potential_ harmful.

  • jabl

    today at 10:47 AM

    I'm not a doctor or researcher in that field, but my understanding is that cancer is not 'one disease', but rather a huge number of different diseases which mostly have in common that they develop some kind of tumors.

    That's also one reason why progress in cancer research and drug development is so slow. 'Fix' one cancer, and what you've developed likely has little effect on the zillion other cancer variants.

    • bregma

      today at 11:26 AM

      Mesothelioma caused by asbestos is only a single disease. It has a known cause. It has been well researched. The causal links are clear: prevention is the answer. It doesn't matter that other cancers are different diseases, that is irrelevant to mesothelioma caused by asbestos.

  • bfkwlfkjf

    today at 11:51 AM

    Which cheese from Lidl do you recommend? I'm in the UK.

  • anovikov

    today at 11:01 AM

    It's not at all uncommon. Virtually everything that has tiny sharp pieces in it, will work like that. Graphene for instance.

    • CheeseFromLidl

      today at 12:10 PM

      You’re correct. Iirc the blueish smoke from car tires share a similar property.

• emmelaich

  today at 10:19 AM

  If it's intact and below surface the risk is far lower. You have to worry about airborne asbestos.

  Not saying you should ignore it but don't dig it up without knowing what you're in for.

I had a garden shed with an asbestos roof when we moved in - the first renovation was to get rid of it entirely.

> The company mined asbestos-bearing rock at several sites in South Africa

"In South Africa" is not very specific.

it seems to have been firstly in this remote in the remote Northern Cape where "The mine eventually became the largest crocidolite mine in the world" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koegas_mine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos_Mountains

It predictably wasn't consequence-free at that end either, see the later parts of article. And many other sources, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2001/sep/15/weekend...

Designing the way to route amplifiers in aesbesto attic, which is one element for compressed exposure to respitory disease.

Connect and die

When I was younger, my dad had me help him repair the roof of the shed by getting on top of it, putting these sorts of flexible sheets over the old corrugated ones (that are made of asbestos cement) and driving nails through the top one all the way until it'd hit the wood frame underneath.

Now, asbestosis is more common in long term exposure so it might be fine, but not bothering to tell me to wear a respirator and the ignorance after I brought it up years later makes me disgusted. So now I have to wonder whether decades later I'll have complications without clear ways to address them.

• today at 11:06 AM

• bartvk

  today at 11:17 AM

  By now, the dangers of asbestos are well known. What was his reasoning about being ignorant?

  • KronisLV

    today at 12:05 PM

    His reasoning, the way he told me, was that:

      1. driving nails into it won't release as many particles as cutting or similar activities would
      2. the fact that there's a flexible sheet on top of the asbestos one means that the only exposure would typically be through the created hole through which the nail is being driven, or the sides of the sheet, so it should be sealed off enough anyways
      3. since the activity took place in fresh air instead of indoors, the wind (even though there wasn't much of it) should take care of any particles that are left
    

    I get the reasoning, but at the same time, it's bad that he made that judgement call himself and couldn't be bothered to tell me. Like, at least give me the information and give me the choice on how to proceed, I would have much preferred to wear a mask instead. It's a bit like riding a bike, helmets are there for a good reason, even if the choice whether to wear them is (or should be) yours.

    • gausswho

      today at 12:36 PM

      The reasoning does seem... reaaonable. But in this case it's likely not reasoning but rather its guilt-laden doppleganger: rationalization after the fact. Very common in my family, especially the confident/proud ones, including myself.

      I try to recognize when I realize I'm doing it, stop, apologize for the deception that it is, and commit to more sincere communication.

      Alternatively, regularly informing your family of each infinitesimal danger in this world is a path to neurosis or estrangement. There is a balance, and in some cases non-disclosure does feel the right path (to me).

    • bartvk

      today at 12:22 PM

      Yup, agreed. His reasoning is sound except the choice should be yours. I have the feeling that the older generation is a bit more callous with safety and health. The comparison with motorcycles is apt, because I've read about similar generational issues in the motorcyclegear subreddit.

To believe that governments as recent as the first Trump administration wanted to protect the asbestos industry: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-administration-p...

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