From my Gen Z understanding, asbestos was found out to be really toxic and damaging, but how did we purge it like we did lead in most products? I know with other hazardous waste we have to bury it for the foreseeable thousands of years, or it turns into a superfund site. What methods did we manly use to get rid of asbestos? I have also checked search, and search engines extensively to see similar queries but I have found none. So, I see this to be OC if that makes sense, or an original question.
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We haven’t stopped using it. We stopped widespread use in an uncontrolled way, but there are still plenty of places to find it in use.
Asbestos isn’t toxic. Chemically it’s extremely inert which is why it’s so resistant to fire and heat. The problem is that it’s made up of microscopic fibers that can go airborne. Any that get in you by being swallowed or inhaled are pretty much inside you forever. The bigger fragment will act like little knives tearing up your cells which is how you get the scarring. The smallest ones will act like very tiny knives and can do things like slice up your DNA in the cell nucleus which is how you get cancer.
If we keep those fibers damp it can’t get airborne to harm people and just needs to be disposed of in a way that prevents it from getting into the groundwater. It’s pretty frequent that our solution is to just leave it there. If it’s not a dust-causing form, leaving it there is safer than tearing it out and creating that dust.
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