I see this in the news often when old ships retiring or being scrapped comes up. Why are ships so full of toxic / asbestos material, compared to other typical industrial things?
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Not necessarily more than old buildings, there are/were a lot of buildings with asbestos in them. Many have already had it removed years ago due to legal requirements. In other cases the asbestos is safe so long as it isn’t disturbed (cut or drilled into), so it can stay in the building.
Asbestos was used on a lot of ships because most large ships have complex engines that require insulation, and a cheap effective form of insulation was asbestos. Depending on the environment, ships also needed insulation to keep people inside warm or cool.
Unlike buildings, ships don’t tend to last for centuries, so there are a lot of older ships that need to be disposed of, and which are full of asbestos. Cutting apart a ship full of asbestos is tricky, because it will disturb the asbestos and put asbestos particles into the air where workers can breath them unless the asbestos is carefully removed first.
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