6 ms·

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 s

by wincy 1y ago

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 1y ago
As they say, the main export of Russia is suffering. Both figuratively and literally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3piCUPIkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3piCUPIkc
- jiggawatts 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - hammock 1y ago
    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.
    - jiggawatts 1y ago
      [flagged]
- Ray20 1y ago
  Isn't asbestos used pretty much everywhere in the world (except rich countries)? So yes, it's dangerous. But it's very cheap, and poverty is far more dangerous than asbestos. It's simply a fact: residents of most countries simply can't afford a 200k dollars asbestos-free house, like Americans or Europeans can. If Americans had less affordable homes like the rest of the world have, they would still be building them out of asbestos.
  - jabl 1y ago
    Not using asbestos is not the reason why homes in the Western world are expensive. https://aiobs.org/how-healthy-and-costly-are-the-most-used-insulation-types/ https://aiobs.org/how-healthy-and-costly-are-the-most-used-i... shows insulation cost for a (typical?) 1500sqft (~140m^2 for the rest of the world) home. The most common, and also the cheapest, type of insulation being fiberglass bats at $560. So if this home would cost $200k, that's 3% of the total price. So even if asbestos would be free, it would barely move the needle in total cost. Edit: That $560 looks suspiciously low. Googling around some more shows an insulation (incl. installation) cost for a "typical" home at around $3500-$4500. In any case, a small fraction of the total cost of a house project.
    - bruckie 1y ago
      $560 out of $200k is 0.3%. $4500 out of $200k is 2.3%. Either way, yeah it's a small fraction.
      - b112 1y ago
        A gentle note to anyone reading, fiberglass insulation requires wearing air filters, for the same reasons noted else in this thread. Wear them expecially to cut it, but also just putting it up or working in a crawlspace with it.
        jrmg 1y ago
        That’s not what the manufacturers of modern glass fiber insulation would have you believe. Plenty of people cutting and handling it with no PPE at all in their promotional literature. https://www.owenscorning.com/en-us/insulation/pink-next-gen-fiberglas/safety https://www.owenscorning.com/en-us/insulation/pink-next-gen-...
        landl0rd 1y ago
        Fiberglass is at least pretty easy one to figure out. Don't have to get that stuff in your skin more than once to realize it's probably really, really bad to breathe.
gruez 1y ago
>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 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”).
- morkalork 1y ago
  More likely the town is named after the material, there's an Asbestos in Canada as well. I always get a kick out of cities named like that: Cobalt Ontario, Uranium City, for example.
  - simonlc 1y ago
    They renamed the town, it's called Val-des-Sources now.
  - Nursie 1y ago
    Chloride, New Mexico. Named for the silver salt found there.
throwaway290 1y ago
This is false actually. asbestos is banned in Russia in residential flat construction (unless it is fully isolated so that it doesn't get inside the space) exactly because it is bad for your lungs. There's limits on how much asbestos can be in the air safely and thry are pretty low
- orbital-decay 1y ago
  Eternit (асбестоцементный шифер) is absolutely everywhere in Russia, even if banned in residential construction, so the exposure chance is still pretty high.
  - blub 1y ago
    In Europe, Eternit as a brand of fiber cement still exists, but they replaced the asbestos with something else.
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    It is a fact that that type of asbestos is less bad (though still bad). But yes it's true it is common in roofs in russia and probably shouldn't be. But if roofing material is exposed in your room you're doing something wrong. Also legal limit for asbest dust in air also apply to asbest used in "шифер" (according to wikipedia)
marcosdumay 1y ago
It's still in use today,all over the world in industrial and laboratory equipment. Many countries also do mine it. What that Russian city is alone is in ignoring safety requirements and mining it like people did in the 90s.
cgh 1y ago
When I was nine years old, we moved to an asbestos-mining town for about a year and a half. Sometimes dust settled on our house when they were blasting up at the mine site. It’s closed now and the road into town was decommissioned. It’s a remote place to begin with but I still hear of people making the trek to get in there.
userbinator 1y ago
There is this very interesting study on workers of the still-active mine in Asbest, well worth a read: https://asbest-study.iarc.who.int/ https://asbest-study.iarc.who.int/
RobGR 1y ago
I would appear that you can buy it on Alibaba: https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=asbestos&has4Tab=true&from=pcHomeContent https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=asbe... I have not tried, although I was tempted just out of curiosity -- would it make it through customs and get delivered to me in the US ? The rope and fabric style products should not be that dangerous because they are long fibers that should not break off and float in the air, and the cylinder head gasket material is probably chopped short fibers but it's embedded in a matrix of other stuff. We probably over regulate the long fiber stuff. The short felt-like fibers we used to mix into plaster, cement, anything needing strength and texture, are probably correctly banned; the risk to reward seems not worth it. Many of those products could use glass fiber just as well. However, I think the general experience of people exposed to rock or cement dust, basically anything silica based that gets into the lungs, is that is really bad. Handling short chopped mineral fiber of any type seems like something that has to have a huge payoff, like part of a rocket for satillite launches, to be worth it. This is good to keep in mind because there are some really interesting alternative mineral fiber products out there. Basalt fiber in particular, is sold in a chopped mix for adding to concrete, seems potentially bad. There are some interesting ceramic fibers available too. https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=basalt%20fiber&has4Tab=true&from=pcHomeContent https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=basa... https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=ceramic%20fiber&has4Tab=true&from=pcHomeContent https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=cera...
- userbinator 1y ago
  Even cotton dust is bad if you breathe enough of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byssinosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byssinosis
  - SpicyUme 1y ago
    Baker's lung is a thing too. I think about that when I see the dust from my spice grinder when making various powders. No matter what there is airborne dust when I open the grinder. I try to do my wood cutting outside but I am not sanding much. When I refinished my floors I wore dust protection and a loose tshirt over the dust protection to make clean up at the end of the day a bit easier.
rdtsc 1y ago
> name literally comes from the Russian town of Asbest The other way around, since it's pretty much the reason the town exists, they named it after asbestos. It's not too unusual in the largest country in the world rich with mineral deposits. Other names might be Slantsy (oil shales), Apatity (apatites) and of course, Nikel
jve 1y ago
> I wouldn't want to live in a building with it Well, as I gather from information all over, the only danger is if you start to mess with it, like cutting, breaking and such. As then you put the nasty dust airborne.
bamboozled 1y ago
It is but you're mostly thinking of white asbestos, not blue or brown. If you go read about the history of asbestos and links to cancer you will find that while white asbestos isn't good, it's much much less likely to kill you as quickly as brown or blue. Have a read about Wittenoom in Western Australia. It was a town on the outskirts of a blue asbestos mine, it's absolutely tragic what went on there, kids would be playing in mounds of blue asbestos, many of them tragically died. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia

by wincy 1y ago

meindnoch 1y ago

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

jiggawatts 1y ago
[flagged]
- hammock 1y ago
  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.
  - jiggawatts 1y ago
    [flagged]
Ray20 1y ago
Isn't asbestos used pretty much everywhere in the world (except rich countries)? So yes, it's dangerous. But it's very cheap, and poverty is far more dangerous than asbestos. It's simply a fact: residents of most countries simply can't afford a 200k dollars asbestos-free house, like Americans or Europeans can. If Americans had less affordable homes like the rest of the world have, they would still be building them out of asbestos.
- jabl 1y ago
  Not using asbestos is not the reason why homes in the Western world are expensive. https://aiobs.org/how-healthy-and-costly-are-the-most-used-insulation-types/ https://aiobs.org/how-healthy-and-costly-are-the-most-used-i... shows insulation cost for a (typical?) 1500sqft (~140m^2 for the rest of the world) home. The most common, and also the cheapest, type of insulation being fiberglass bats at $560. So if this home would cost $200k, that's 3% of the total price. So even if asbestos would be free, it would barely move the needle in total cost. Edit: That $560 looks suspiciously low. Googling around some more shows an insulation (incl. installation) cost for a "typical" home at around $3500-$4500. In any case, a small fraction of the total cost of a house project.
  - bruckie 1y ago
    $560 out of $200k is 0.3%. $4500 out of $200k is 2.3%. Either way, yeah it's a small fraction.
    - b112 1y ago
      A gentle note to anyone reading, fiberglass insulation requires wearing air filters, for the same reasons noted else in this thread. Wear them expecially to cut it, but also just putting it up or working in a crawlspace with it.
      - jrmg 1y ago
        That’s not what the manufacturers of modern glass fiber insulation would have you believe. Plenty of people cutting and handling it with no PPE at all in their promotional literature. https://www.owenscorning.com/en-us/insulation/pink-next-gen-fiberglas/safety https://www.owenscorning.com/en-us/insulation/pink-next-gen-...
        landl0rd 1y ago
        Fiberglass is at least pretty easy one to figure out. Don't have to get that stuff in your skin more than once to realize it's probably really, really bad to breathe.

gruez 1y ago

>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 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”).

morkalork 1y ago
More likely the town is named after the material, there's an Asbestos in Canada as well. I always get a kick out of cities named like that: Cobalt Ontario, Uranium City, for example.
- simonlc 1y ago
  They renamed the town, it's called Val-des-Sources now.
- Nursie 1y ago
  Chloride, New Mexico. Named for the silver salt found there.

throwaway290 1y ago

This is false actually. asbestos is banned in Russia in residential flat construction (unless it is fully isolated so that it doesn't get inside the space) exactly because it is bad for your lungs. There's limits on how much asbestos can be in the air safely and thry are pretty low

orbital-decay 1y ago
Eternit (асбестоцементный шифер) is absolutely everywhere in Russia, even if banned in residential construction, so the exposure chance is still pretty high.
- blub 1y ago
  In Europe, Eternit as a brand of fiber cement still exists, but they replaced the asbestos with something else.
- throwaway290 1y ago
  It is a fact that that type of asbestos is less bad (though still bad). But yes it's true it is common in roofs in russia and probably shouldn't be. But if roofing material is exposed in your room you're doing something wrong. Also legal limit for asbest dust in air also apply to asbest used in "шифер" (according to wikipedia)

marcosdumay 1y ago

It's still in use today,all over the world in industrial and laboratory equipment. Many countries also do mine it. What that Russian city is alone is in ignoring safety requirements and mining it like people did in the 90s.

cgh 1y ago

When I was nine years old, we moved to an asbestos-mining town for about a year and a half. Sometimes dust settled on our house when they were blasting up at the mine site. It’s closed now and the road into town was decommissioned. It’s a remote place to begin with but I still hear of people making the trek to get in there.

userbinator 1y ago

There is this very interesting study on workers of the still-active mine in Asbest, well worth a read: https://asbest-study.iarc.who.int/ https://asbest-study.iarc.who.int/

RobGR 1y ago

I would appear that you can buy it on Alibaba: https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=asbestos&has4Tab=true&from=pcHomeContent https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=asbe... I have not tried, although I was tempted just out of curiosity -- would it make it through customs and get delivered to me in the US ? The rope and fabric style products should not be that dangerous because they are long fibers that should not break off and float in the air, and the cylinder head gasket material is probably chopped short fibers but it's embedded in a matrix of other stuff. We probably over regulate the long fiber stuff. The short felt-like fibers we used to mix into plaster, cement, anything needing strength and texture, are probably correctly banned; the risk to reward seems not worth it. Many of those products could use glass fiber just as well. However, I think the general experience of people exposed to rock or cement dust, basically anything silica based that gets into the lungs, is that is really bad. Handling short chopped mineral fiber of any type seems like something that has to have a huge payoff, like part of a rocket for satillite launches, to be worth it. This is good to keep in mind because there are some really interesting alternative mineral fiber products out there. Basalt fiber in particular, is sold in a chopped mix for adding to concrete, seems potentially bad. There are some interesting ceramic fibers available too. https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=basalt%20fiber&has4Tab=true&from=pcHomeContent https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=basa... https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=ceramic%20fiber&has4Tab=true&from=pcHomeContent https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?tab=all&SearchText=cera...

userbinator 1y ago
Even cotton dust is bad if you breathe enough of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byssinosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byssinosis
- SpicyUme 1y ago
  Baker's lung is a thing too. I think about that when I see the dust from my spice grinder when making various powders. No matter what there is airborne dust when I open the grinder. I try to do my wood cutting outside but I am not sanding much. When I refinished my floors I wore dust protection and a loose tshirt over the dust protection to make clean up at the end of the day a bit easier.

rdtsc 1y ago

> name literally comes from the Russian town of Asbest The other way around, since it's pretty much the reason the town exists, they named it after asbestos. It's not too unusual in the largest country in the world rich with mineral deposits. Other names might be Slantsy (oil shales), Apatity (apatites) and of course, Nikel

jve 1y ago

> I wouldn't want to live in a building with it Well, as I gather from information all over, the only danger is if you start to mess with it, like cutting, breaking and such. As then you put the nasty dust airborne.

bamboozled 1y ago

It is but you're mostly thinking of white asbestos, not blue or brown. If you go read about the history of asbestos and links to cancer you will find that while white asbestos isn't good, it's much much less likely to kill you as quickly as brown or blue. Have a read about Wittenoom in Western Australia. It was a town on the outskirts of a blue asbestos mine, it's absolutely tragic what went on there, kids would be playing in mounds of blue asbestos, many of them tragically died. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia