Asbestos Removal Supplies
June 2, 2010
The best thing to do with material that contains asbestos is to leave it alone if it is in good condition. If you are not sure, you can get it inspected. If removal is the best option, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends having a qualified, state-licensed contractor do the work. Asbestos removal is dangerous work. Therefore, safety is a top priority.
Supplies needed for asbestos removal depend upon the scope of the work, but there are several common elements.
Build an Enclosure
Build a containment area in order to prevent asbestos fibers from escaping into other parts of the house or building. Cover and seal all surfaces that you want to keep clean and asbestos-free, including the floors. Use duct tape and rolls of thick plastic sheeting.
You will need a special entrance and exit to keep asbestos fibers inside while workers move in and out of the enclosure.
Have a fire extinguisher handy because plastic sheeting is flammable.
Larger projects may require the use of a fan with a HEPA air filter attached to the containment.
Put up signage, cautioning people to stay away from the area while work is in progress.
Personal Protection Equipment
All workers will need protective clothing and equipment to keep the fibers off hair and clothes, to avoid inhalation of asbestos fibers and to keep asbestos confined to the work area.
Proper respirators with HEPA filters should be worn, as well as Tyvek protective coveralls and rubber boots. The EPA also recommends eye protection and gloves.
Removal Tools
Standard demolition hand tools, such as knives and crowbars, are used to remove asbestos. Workers use the tools to cut away and remove asbestos-containing material such as floor tiles, pipe insulation and popcorn ceilings. Electrical power tools are usually not used because of the dust they produce and the potential shock hazard they pose. The goal is to produce as little dust as possible. Consider using water sprayers to minimize dust.
Clean-Up
Use thick plastic bags to deposit the asbestos waste. Wipe down all the tools with a wet rag, and then dispose of the rag. Double-bag all the asbestos waste, and seal the bag with duct tape. Clean or dispose of your clothing, and dispose of the cleaning rags. Workers, for personal cleanup, use specially contained showers.
Dispose of asbestos may only at an approved landfill that accepts asbestos waste. Check with your state regulatory agency for more information.
Relief effort in Haiti undergoes asbestos scare
May 26, 2010
Military personnel in the 82nd Airborne Division were unnerved recently by the development of sore throats and coughs following their exposure to various work-sites throughout the Haiti relief effort. Many feared that the coughs could be signs of asbestos contamination like that experienced in the relief efforts following the 9/11 attacks.
The affects of urban disasters are often a lot more complicated and far reaching than is immediately discernible. In the years after the 9/11 attacks hundreds of people made claims against New York City after developing cancers like mesothelioma from inhaling toxic dust in and around ground zero. The city failed to warn workers and others of the asbestos contained in the rubble, putting thousands of people in harm’s way when simple preventative measures could have made a life-saving difference.
The claims regarding New York City’s negligence aren’t only valid, they’re swaying the sympathy of those involved in deciding the case. In fact, just recently a judge involved in the litigation against the city reportedly rejected a settlement offer of nearly $600 million, claiming that the figure was too low for the pain and suffering caused.
Florida Man Awarded $14 Million After Mesothelioma Diagnosis
May 25, 2010
In a recent trial taking place in Miami, Florida, a 59-year-old man has been awarded more than $14 million for being exposed to asbestos and eventually developing the rare cancer peritoneal mesothelioma.
A Miami jury found the chemical manufacturing company Union Carbide negligent for selling asbestos fibers to other companies, which later used them to make joint compounds utilized by construction companies.
William Aubin, the man diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, was exposed to such joint compounds while working for his family’s construction company during the 1970s. Because asbestos was incorporated into more than 3,000 building products at its height of use, construction workers are at an increased risk for developing an asbestos-related disease.
Asbestos exposure is the primary cause of mesothelioma. Exposure can occur by either inhaling or ingesting asbestos fibers, after which time they can become lodged in the lining of the lungs, heart or abdominal cavity. Due to the latency period of symptoms, which can range between 20 and 50 years after exposure, the average mesothelioma life expectancy for patients after diagnosis is four to 18 months.
Mailroom Mask Fight
May 24, 2010
Post office worker told not to wear mask while cleaning asbestos floor tiles
Michael Doherty of Brooklyn, New York is a retired homicide detective who took a job as a custodian at the Lindenhurst Post Office. He was a first responder at the World Trade Center site after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Doherty began wearing a protective face mask when he scrubbed the asbestos floor tiles in the mailroom, which he claimed were making him sick, but he has been forbidden to wear it any longer.
He said he was told by bosses not to wear the mask because he hadn’t shown he was certified to use it. His lawyer, Pete Gleason, said there was no rule requiring certification for the mask.
Doherty claims that the cracked asbestos floor tiles are making him sick and could be affecting his co-workers, as well – and that the post office doesn’t want him to wear the mask because it alerts the other employees to the presence of asbestos. He said that testing showed asbestos levels exceeding federal regulations. The post office will be investigating the claims.
For the full story, go to New York Post.
Mesothelioma and Asbestos Risk for California Teens
May 24, 2010
This from SurvivingMesothelioma.com
Three California executives responsible for helping at-risk teenagers gain job skills have been charged with putting those teens at risk for asbestos related diseases including mesothelioma cancer.
The executives ran a now-closed non-profit agency in Merced called Firm Build. According to the Merced County District Attorney’s Office, between 2005 and 2006, a group of teens being trained in construction by Firm Build were sent to remove asbestos from old buildings without adequate protection. The Silicon Valley Mercury News reports that the teens had to remove the asbestos-containing products using only paper face masks and hard hats.
The mineral asbestos, still prevalent as an insulator and building product in thousands of older structures, is known to cause mesothelioma, as well as asbestosis, lung cancer and other serious pulmonary problems. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has established strict guidelines for the type of protection required for asbestos removal, which may include protective gear and respirators. The Firm Build executives have been charged with child endangerment.
The Asbestos Removal Plight of Libby Montana
May 24, 2010
Asbestos remediation is an ongoing need in the US. Here is but one example of the damaging effects of asbestos. This story appears on Yahoo.com:
For asbestos-ravaged town, questions persist
LIBBY, Mont. – Gayla Benefield and Eva Thomson are sisters who have grown used to death. For two decades, they have watched asbestos from a nearby vermiculite mine strangle their parents, Thomson’s husband, an aunt, several in-laws and numerous neighbors and friends.
So as they wandered the Libby cemetery on a blustery Montana morning, they worked the graves like a block party — retelling old stories and commiserating with the dead.
Talk turned to their own fates.
Both sisters suffer from the microscopic asbestos fibers lodged deep in their lungs. Their breathing is sometimes choked by plaque building up around the fibers. If it progresses into cancerous mesothelioma, they face certain death.
“If you’re lucky, you get hit by a truck and you go quickly,” Benefield said, her face betraying no emotion but her voice tight with anger.
The sisters’ town, Libby, population 3,000 along the Kootenai River, has emerged as the deadliest Superfund site in the nation’s history.
Health workers tracking Libby’s plight estimate at least 400 people have died of asbestos-related illnesses — from W.R. Grace mine workers and family members who breathed in the dust they brought home in their clothes, to those who played as kids in waste piles dumped by the company behind the community baseball field. Some 1,500 locals and others who were exposed have chest X-rays revealing the faint, cloudy shadows of asbestos scarring on their lungs.
Even though research long showed cause for concern — up to 70 percent of miners in a 1980s study had fibers in their lungs — it took news reports about the deaths to drive officials to action, beginning a decade ago. After the cleanup began, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency confidently predicted it would be done in two years at a cost of $5.8 million. Ten years on, the price tag has exceeded $333 million, the deaths continue, and more asbestos keeps showing up — in schools, in businesses, in hundreds of houses.
The scope of contamination has at times overwhelmed environmental regulators, dragging out the cleanup, an Associated Press review of hundreds of pages of government documents and interviews with current and former agency officials revealed.
News cameras returned to Libby last June, when new EPA chief Lisa Jackson declared a health emergency, a step the agency rejected during the Bush administration.
New patients continue to file into the local clinic to be diagnosed with asbestos illnesses at the rate of 15 to 20 a month. Because of a decades-long latency period, such diagnoses are expected for at least another 10 years.
The EPA this month took its first step toward wrapping up its efforts over the next two to three years, rekindling anxieties.
“Everybody wants Libby to go away and it’s not going away,” said Dr. Brad Black, director of Libby’s Center for Asbestos Related Diseases. His stethoscope pressed against the back of a 36-year-old patient who never worked in the mine, Black said the man’s exposure likely came from playing in a friend’s contaminated house as a child.
Some scientists say the threat will exist as long as people remain in Libby — and the notion of moving the whole town has been floated by an attorney for a citizens’ group. But just as some residents maintained a fierce loyalty to W.R. Grace even as fatal asbestos illness spread, the idea of moving now is quickly discarded.
Benefield, a former bartender and truck driver, said she’s been to four asbestos-related funerals so far this year and has started making preparations for her own burial. So has Thomson, who bought a plot alongside her deceased husband, Dale, a supervisor for Grace who died at age 61 in 1992.
No one has gone to jail for what happened in Libby.
If you want to read the rest of the article go here: Yahoo.com
“People say, ‘Why don’t you leave Libby?’” Benefield said. “I’ve got the fiber in me. That won’t make the problem go away. Not at all.”
Why You Need A Professional Asbestos Remediation Company
February 6, 2010
Asbestos became increasingly popular among manufacturers and builders in the late 1800’s because of its resistance to heat as well as to electrical and chemical damage. Because of these characteristics, asbestos had been used commonly in building construction materials for insulation and as a fire-retardant. It has excellent fiber strength and heat resistant properties and can be found primarily in building materials such as roofing shingles, ceiling and floor tiles, paper products, and asbestos cement products. It has also been found in such items as automobile clutches, brakes, and transmission parts as well as heat-resistant fabrics, packaging, gaskets, and coatings.
When asbestos-containing materials are damaged or disturbed by repair, remodeling or demolition activities, microscopic fibers become airborne and can be inhaled into the lungs where they can cause significant health problems. For that reason, any time asbestos removal (abatement) is considered, one must first discover how and in what form the asbestos is present. The removal of asbestos should only be completed by a certified asbestos remediation professional who is qualified to seal off the affected area and knows the proper way to remove the asbestos. If the asbestos remediation is not done properly, it can pose major health dangers to those working or living in the area in question because the asbestos fibers will travel in the air.
Do your research when looking for a licensed, reputable asbestos removal company in your area. You want to find qualified experts who completely understand the risks involved with the handling, storage, and transportation of asbestos. Qualified asbestos abatement specialists will know how to minimize or remove any risk to other people living and working nearby.
Check with several different asbestos remediation professionals to get price quotes. Many contractors will charge a set fee whether the job is large or small. Others will charge by the amount of work involved, so if the abatement needs to be done at several locations, keep in mind that the cost can certainly be rise into the thousands of dollars. Cost includes the clean up and disposal as well. Consider the different areas that are affected and the complexity of the removal process. There are also state and federal regulations that asbestos removal companies must follow closely, so it is important that you understand these regulations before you sign any agreement.
There are different ways to approach asbestos abatement. Some methods are less aggressive than others. Talk to the professional asbestos remediation expert that you eventually choose to determine the best method for your situation.
Asbestos removal may be expensive and seemingly time consuming, but the end result is the elimination of health risks and the creation of healthy, safe environments.
Allegro
October 2, 2009
Working in atmospheres likely to contain dangerous particulates requires reliable constant air monitoring. Meeting OSHA and AHERA standards, Allegro Industries has a complete line of mold Sampling Pumps. This broad selection delivers dependable area monitoring of mold, lead, asbestos and other dangerous particulates.
The unique Allegro Venturi Sampling Pump is air driven and requires only 40 PSI to draw samples. This low cost, quiet and lightweight alternative is excellent for all types of sampling and the perfect choice when there is no electrical power within the containment area.
The most powerful sampler on the market today is the Allegro Dual Sampler. This low-maintenance rotary vane sampler has an extensive range making it the perfect choice for drawing dual samples in a mold environment. It comes with a stand and two adapters to hold the Air-O-Cell cassette and to mount an Impactor. Two adjustable flow meters, built-in switch cord, stand, handle and exhaust muffler are all standard features.
The T100 Rotary Vane and the A100 Rotary Vane offer a sampling range of 3-20 LPM. The T100M is the upgraded version incorporating all the features of the T100 with the addition of a built-in adjustable 5-50 LPM flow meter. The T100M will also work with Impactors.
The Diaphragm Sampling Pump uses a pulsating diaphragm to sample air quality. The quiet operation makes this excellent for indoor testing. The adjustable regulator provides a locked-in operating range of 3-15 LPM. The adjustable aluminum tripod, six feet of vinyl tubing, inline filters, muffler jar, handle and switch cord are all standard.
The DC Sampling Pump is DC powered and is a self-contained programmable unit designed specifically to run Air-O-Cel (mold) cassettes. Compact, lightweight with 5 hours of continuous operation.