The Tokyo 2020 Olympics committee have said they will be taking “emergency countermeasures” after it was discovered that there was asbestos at the water polo venue after having initially decided against treating it when it was discovered two years ago, it was reported by the Asahi newspaper on Monday.
The report claimed the potentially deadly substance was found by the Tokyo government in fireproof material sprayed on part of the supporting structure for the Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Centre's roof. Despite the regulations for the Japanese construction industry stating that all......
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Despite asbestos being banned in more than 60 countries across the world, latest figures from 2018 have revealed its widespread and continued commercial use in the United states.
According to the recent Department of the Interior Geological Survey, the US imported 750 metric tonnes of asbestos in 2018 - more than double the 332 metric tonnes from 2017 and is the highest reported figure from the past five years.
In America companies can continue to import asbestos, as long as they have permission from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
This perceived lack of......
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Until the it was widely known of the dangers that asbestos caused it was used as fake snow due to its resemblance to the ideal pure white, fluffy snowfall that we dream of each year. It was used in a variety of different areas such as in the Christmas displays in department stores, in the many households that used it to decorate their trees, ornaments, wreaths and around the home and in the factories that were creating the asbestos based fake snow.
The entertainment industry also found use for the substance......
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As Christmas comes around again and everyone is decorating their homes they may be handling asbestos if they are using decorations from the 19th century an era in which asbestos was in widespread use or even from the early 20th century where it was still prevalent, this may be the case when people are using decorations that have been in the family for many years.
Due to the texture and colour of the asbestos flakes it became the perfect fit to be used as a decorative element on wreathes and Christmas......
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According to a new report by thinktank ResPublica, the regulation of asbestos in Britain is so inadequate that a child could be exposed to up to 10 times as much of the deadly material as they would in many other European countries.
The report is heavily critical of the current regulatory regime, directly comparing the levels allowed in the UK to those in Germany:
“A child inhales between five and 10 cubic metres of air per day, meaning the permitted levels of airborne asbestos......
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Scientists at the universities of Cambridge and Liverpool have claimed that beer filtered with asbestos may be the cause behind a large increase in the diagnosis of gullet cancer, with this exposure potentially being the reason for a four-fold increase in cases.
Until the 1980s, some breweries used this toxic mineral to filter out impurities in beer. It is also thought that some pub owners would even add a handful of the deadly material to leftovers at the end of their shift for ‘cleansing’, so it could be served the following......
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Last September, as many university students were about to start a new academic year, a Freedom of Information request filed by Stephensons Solicitors LLP to 106 universities in England, revealed the just how many of these institutions contained asbestos.
From the 91 universities that responded to the FOI request, 74% contain asbestos in the fabric of their buildings and 86% contain asbestos on their grounds.
The results of this enquiry led to Stephensons injury team calling on all universities to sufficiently inform students and staff about the hazardous material if it is......
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‘Asbestos Lady’ and ‘Asbestos Man’ — villains from the Marvel Comics in the ’40s and ’60s, nemeses of the ‘Human Torch’ - a superhero who controls fire, were both significant characters in 20th Century asbestos awareness. At the time the substance was disclosed as hazardous to human health, yet was still globally used in manufacturing and construction industries because of its affordability and durability.
As the public became more aware of its harmful effect, not just its properties, comics started to represent asbestos as a miracle material – but with negative or toxic......
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The town called Asbestos
Asbestos town is located at southern Quebec province. Its first asbestos mine was established in 1879 and helped the local community grow dramatically. Today, its economy entirely depends on asbestos mining, extraction and production, as does the life of its citizens. Despite numerous attempts to outlaw the substance, the government maintained its support for the asbestos industry. In the case of Asbestos town, a $58 million loan was granted by the government to keep the last mine operational. However, following a new presidential election, the loan was cancelled, preventing further......Continue Reading
Standing on the rim of the world’s largest open pit asbestos mine reveals a panoramic scene. Opened in the late 1800s, it is about half the size of the island of Manhattan and the source of untold tons of asbestos. The pit descends about 1,000 feet down slopes created by terraced access roads. Big mining trucks haul out fibrous, gray, raw asbestos. A billboard put up by Uralasbest in Asbest proclaims “Asbestos is our Future”.
In the Russian region of Sverdlovsk Oblast, on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, there is a......
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