Why do ships have so much asbestos?

Question

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?

In: 5

Answer 1

To my knowledge, Asbestos is no longer used on any vessels built in a very long time. There are other equivalent substitutes. It’s the older ships that have all the steam piping and exhaust manifolds wrapped in asbestos and it’s expensive to safely remove.