Dodgy Asbestos Removal Technique

Capt Doufos

Capt Doufos

Capt Doufos

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Location
Nr Colchester, Essex
I was walking along the seafront at lunchtime today, and noticed a guy on top of a beach hut covered head to toe in a protective suit and wearing a filter mask, odd I thought. I then noticed his van which informed me he worked an Asbestos removal company, which explained the suit, however he was using a broom to sweep the roof sending clouds of dust into the air. Surely you can't be doing that in a public place with other people, children etc. walking past constantly? Isn't it the largest health risk if you breath it in?

To be fair I can't imagine a beach hut has survived long enough to still contain asbestos, but if he was taking the hazard to himself seriously surely he should have been mindful of others? Not sure if I should take it up with someone or not.

What do you think?
 
Sounds wrong to me but I'm no expert - when they removed some from our old garage they damped it down before sweeping IIRC.
 
Maybe I didn't because I wasn't daft enough to walk through it, but what about all the children playing around the hut? What if this guy makes a habit of doing it?
 
Such limited exposure will increase your chances of lung cancer by such a tiny amount thats it's not worth fretting.

(This post is not a result of anything that remotely resembles scientific fact - it is merely my own thoughts on the topic - feel free to educate me if you know better)
 
The whole asbestos scare campaign is quite ridiculous. A bit of dust is no more harmful then breathing in fumes from car exhausts, which everyone does on a daily basis.
 
Isn't the issue with breathing it that the fibres get lodged in your lungs? Apposed to fumes being chemicals you absorb? Don't get me wrong if what he was doing isn't an issue then fine, it just didn't seem "Right" at the time. I am no expert on asbestos removal which apparently he is. I understand someone removing it every day of the week will be more at risk and take more precautions.
 
It depends if what he was sweeping was actually aspestos or not.

Responsible removers will remove the bulk by hand and have it in sealed bags in as large as chunks as possible, and the dust should then be hoovered up using a suitably filtered machine.

Sweeping aspestos dust is a serious no-no.
 
Hard to know I guess, he had removed the felt and was sweeping whatever was underneath. As stated above, I would have expected it to have been vacuumed up.
 
That's pretty serious if that is the case, although it probably wasn't asbestos dust that he was cleaning up. You normally get asbestos dust after any sort of drilling in the ceiling, which is why it's bad to breathe it in. We had suspected asbestos in our house and reading up on the effects of exposure, it is nasty as hell. I'd call the company up and have words with them first and then decide what course of action to take next. Asbestos is really bad and something that everyone should take seriously.
 
Any chance you can name the company in question?

I'm just wondering if there's other things they take care off as well. Just there's got to be a finite amount of asbestos left it wouldn't surprise me if they had branched out to future proof.
 
CHokKA said:
That's pretty serious if that is the case, although it probably wasn't asbestos dust that he was cleaning up. You normally get asbestos dust after any sort of drilling in the ceiling, which is why it's bad to breathe it in. We had suspected asbestos in our house and reading up on the effects of exposure, it is nasty as hell. I'd call the company up and have words with them first and then decide what course of action to take next. Asbestos is really bad and something that everyone should take seriously.
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Thank you for taking it seriously, i wish more like you on here spoke like this, i find the totally ignorance of some people on these types of threads, it upsetting, the asbestos related deaths have not even peaked yet that's in about 4 years so we got told (we having lost someone in the family from mesothelioma caused by asbestos)
 
Mynight said:
Any chance you can name the company in question?

I'm just wondering if there's other things they take care off as well. Just there's got to be a finite amount of asbestos left it wouldn't surprise me if they had branched out to future proof.
Click to expand...

Finite maybe but given we were using all types until the mid 80s and the white stuff all the way up to 2000 pretty much, there is more than enough of it about to keep an asbestos removal business afloat without necessarily needing to branch out.
 
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