ASBESTOS

Millions of homes still contain, as historical contamination, these banned fibers characterized by a thickness of less than 3 μm and a 3:1 ratio.

Most experts believe that all asbestos can cause cancer even when exposure is minimal.

The World Health Organization WHO sets the maximum asbestos load at 200 fibers per cubic meter of air. However, the current limit value in Spain is 100,000 fibers/m3 for workers at risk of exposure.

Asbestos fibres can nowadays be detected everywhere, even in the Antarctic.

In Spain, the use and marketing of asbestos has been definitively banned since 2002, but previously it was used in a large number of products for building and daily life such as cladding, corrugated Uralite roofing, sprayed plaster, air-conditioning and sanitation systems, flooring and many others.

In many of the products, the fibres are not released or are released very slowly. Other times the material is in a bad condition and the fibres are released continuously. The worst situations occur whenever drilling, scratching, breaking, sanding, etc. are used.

If asbestos fibre contamination is suspected, air sampling is carried out in the house using special pumps.

The recommended method is MTA/MA-051 of the Instituto Nacional de Seguridad e Higiene en el Trabajo “Determination of asbestos and other fibres in air. Membrane filter method/phase contrast optical microscopy”.

A measured volume of air is passed through a filter which captures the fibres in suspension.

The asbestos fibres are deposited on a filter and counted in the laboratory. Based on the volume of air sampled, the fibre concentration in the air is calculated for each sample.

Depending on the case, asbestos-containing products should be removed by authorised specialist companies that comply with the strictest safety measures.

It may make sense to keep asbestos-containing building materials (e.g. with tightly bound fibres and no deterioration) in the house by simply checking or insulating them, rather than removing them (as this could release a lot of fibres).