Asbestos is the term for a group of minerals made of microscopic fibres.  Breathing in these fibres can seriously and irreparably damage your lungs.  There are four main diseases associated with breathing in asbestos fibres:

• Non-malignant pleural disease: pleural plaques and pleural thickening.
• Asbestosis: a non-malignant scarring of the lung tissue which results in inflammation and the loss of elasticity of the lung.
• Asbestos-related lung cancer.
• Mesothelioma 

Here are a few historical facts you may not be aware of:

1. Archaeologists uncovered asbestos fibres in debris dating back to the Stone Age – approximately 75,000 years ago.
    
2. Mines have been found in Finland, Sweden and Greece dating back to 5000 BC and it is believed that, as early as 4000 BC, asbestos fibres were used as wicks in candles and early lamps.
    
3. Evidence shows that asbestos had many uses, such as clay pots that were discovered in Finland. According to Herodotus, the Greek historian wrote of asbestos shrouds being wrapped around bodies that were tossed onto the funeral pyre to prevent their ashes being mixed with those of the fire itself.
    
4. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder (born AD 23) observed the ‘sickness of the lungs’ in slaves who wove asbestos into cloth, yet it was thousands of years before the use of it would be banned. 
    
5. It is rumoured that when Romans would clean asbestos napkins by throwing them into the fire, the asbestos cloth came out of the fire whiter than it went in. It had many uses in Roman time such as suits of armour, paper for writing and textiles. Just think how many thousands of people who must have been exposed to asbestos fibres!
    
6. In the Middle Ages, Marco Polo, and Italian merchant and explorer, observed asbestos mining and weaving in Asia. He was travelling through Asia, along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295 and mentioned asbestos in his writings.
    
7. The Industrial Revolution around 1800 BC in England represented a huge boom for the asbestos industry. Many factories opened and many early entrepreneurs got rich through the mining and processing of asbestos. In these times asbestos was used in the construction, railway, shipbuilding industries. Observations that were made through history were either forgotten or ignored and deaths of literally millions of people worldwide is associated to breathing in these highly toxic fibres.
    
8. A purse, made from asbestos fibres was brought back from Northern Parts of America by Benjamin Franklin in June 1725, can be seen today in the British Museum in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London.
    
9. In the 1950’s the Lorillard Tobacco Company manufactured and marketed the Kent Micronite cigarette which had Crocidolite used in its filter. Crocidolite, also known as blue asbestos is one of the most toxic types of asbestos. The brand is remembered today for producing and selling the most dangerous type of cigarette ever manufactured. The cigarettes were produced from 1952-1956 before they were discontinued, by then 11.7 billion asbestos-containing Kent Micronite cigarettes had been sold in the United States of America.
    
10. Around 2,500 mesothelioma deaths occur in the UK every year, that is approximately seven people every day in the UK only. It is estimated that 10 million lives will have been claimed globally before asbestos is fully controlled.
     

Asbestos is one of the hazards covered by the IOSH Managing Safely course. This excellent risk management-based health and safety course teaches delegates how to carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments and to apply the hierarchy of risk control to eliminate or reduce the risk so far as is reasonably practicable. Common workplace hazards are explained and discussed throughout the course and delegates are motivated to go back to the workplace and make it safer. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has responsibility for the safety of themselves and others at work.  

If you are interested in more information, or if you would like to book a course for your team, please feel free to give me a call or email for further details.