Tuesday, June 5, 2018

By Jessica Cox


Asbestos refers to one of the mineral substances that occur naturally. Usually, it can be pulled into a fluffy consistency. The mineral has soft and flexible fibers. Although soft and flexible, the fibers offer total resistance against chemical corrosion, electricity, and heat. As such, in its purest form, the mineral is a perfect insulator. Some manufacturers used to make plastics, cement, cloth, paper and other materials by mixing this material into them. This is worth knowing about Chicago Asbestos.

It is used in various applications due to its resistance ability to corrosion and insulation properties. It is also used in construction industry. This product has also been deemed harmful to humans and in most countries it is a banned substance.

In the United States the use of this substance has not been banned since there is a lot of opposition from commercial interests. It is therefore legal to include asbestos in any commodity manufactured in the country. However, restrictions on the content of the substance in any product has been put at not more than 1 percent.

These restrictions on the percentage of the substance in any product were put in place some few years ago. This shows that products manufactured before these restrictions were effected or buildings constructed during that time still contain very large amounts of asbestos. There are other countries that the use of the product for industrial and commercial used are legal include China and India.

As stated earlier, this mineral is a threat to human health. It usually releases microscopic fibers into the air, which cannot be seen by the naked eye. Similarly, the microscopic fibers cannot be smelled or tasted, which makes them very hard to detect. One inhaled, they settle in the body, especially the lungs and do not cause any immediate symptoms or effects. This makes it hard for one to know if they have inhaled the fibers.

These fibres are immiscible and tend to settle down in the body and are thus hard to eject from the body system. Research indicates that over time, the fibres result into scarring and inflammations inside the body. The fibres are also known to ruin the genetic structure of cells in the body. They may lead to cancer or mutation in some cases.

Research has also found that diseases that are related to the inhalation of this mineral usually take a period of about 20 to 50 years for them to develop. As such, in the US, most diagnoses are as a result of exposure that occurred before restrictions regarding the use of the mineral were enforced. However, with the restrictions, cases are likely to drop significantly.

Asbestos is not a safe product and should not be inhaled or consumed at any level. This means that even the slightest exposure to this substance can result to a number of conditions. On the downside, when one gets exposed to large levels of the microscopic fibers they pose a danger to themselves. When one gets exposed small amounts of the fibers, it does not posse risk unless it is regular. Once damage is done to the cellular level, there is no known way of reversing the effects.




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