10.8 Occupation Related Disease
Asbestos occurs naturally and can be found on every continent in the world dating back to approximately 750,000 years ago. However, the manufacturing of asbestos did not begin until the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s. By the early 1900s, more than 30,000 tons of asbestos was being produced annually and shipped worldwide. In 1906, the first death of pulmonary failure caused by asbestos fibers in the lungs was recorded. By 1908, Canada and the United States insurance companies began decreasing insurance coverage and benefits, while increasing premiums, for employees who worked around the asbestos industries. Despite the health warnings around the use of asbestos, the world production of asbestos was approximately 4.8 million metric tons (per year) by the year 1977.
Fortunately in the late 1970s, the public began understanding the link between asbestos exposure and the debilitating lung diseases and deaths. Organized labor unions and public health campaigns began demanding safer and healthier working conditions for employees working for asbestos manufacturing companies. In 2003, new environmental regulations demanded either full or partial bands of asbestos use in seventeen different countries; not including the United States.
OSHA has regulated the asbestos standards numerous amount of times as more research and information became available on the effects of asbestos exposure. From the research I conducted the regulations that OSHA developed to protect employees from asbestos exposure are dated and need to be re-evaluated and revised. There is a limited of regulations and not enough protection to provide these employees with safe and healthy working conditions. In 1993, OSHA and the EPA partnered together to record the rule making of asbestos regulation in a 55,000 page manual in order to meet the workplace regulations of both agencies. Currently, asbestos is still not banned in the United States and in 2018 the EPA announced it would be considering new uses of asbestos.
I cannot believe that it is still not completely banned. I wonder why as a country we have such a problem with straight up banning products? It's like we want the flexibility to use it later if we want.
ReplyDeleteJust thinking about a 55,000 page manual sounds exhausting and makes me wonder who really is going to go through this to make sure they are using asbestos in the most safest of conditions? I hardly ever read the instruction manual for a new phone. When it comes to regulations on chemicals such as this, I think it would be more affective to make the manual and guidelines easy to understand and not be 55,000 pages.
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