So asbestos is super dangerous to your lungs. It’s tiny, and sharp, so your lungs can’t remove it using mucus etc as it would with other dusts/particles.
*That makes sense.*
But what about fibreglass insulation – it’s tiny little super sharp glass fibres that (in my head) aren’t much different to fibreglass.
What about fine sand, or even diatomaceous earth which is famous for its ability to kill bugs/insects BECAUSE it’s super sharp on a micro level?
^For ^the ^flair, ^not ^sure ^if ^this ^is ^a ^biology, ^physics ^or ^chemstry ^question. ^I’m ^hoping ^’bio’ ^is ^OK.
^I ^just ^finished ^insulating ^the ^loft ^with ^my ^father-in-law. ^I ^wore ^a ^respirator, ^he ^didn’t ^(too ^’proud’?) ^- ^I’m ^fine, ^just ^itchy ^skin, ^but ^he’s ^had ^a ^bad ^cough ^for ^a ^few ^days.
In: 4960
Asbestos is dangerous because the fibers mechanically damage the machinery of your cells. The fibers are so small that the smallest fibers can get inside your cells and tangle with the DNA causing replication errors during cell division. These errors can greatly increase the rates of cancer.
As to why asbestos is more dangerous, its crystal structure gives it the behavior that as it is crushed it fractures along the same planes preferentially (how is not really ELi5). This means small needles, become smaller needles of the same length, become nanoscale needles of the same length. It doesn’t break in the way other materials would into chunks lengthwise. Asbestos is also extremely soft which makes production of the tiniest shards a lot easier than other materials.
Asbestos isnt just super sharp, its microscopically sharp, it goes inside your cells and cuts your dna in pieces, causing cancer. Diatomaceous earth kills bugs because it absorbs water from them and kills them because they become thirsty
One major problem with asbestos is how friable it is. As it ages, it becomes extremely sensitive to any form of contact, and will shed microscopic particles into the air. Asbestos doesnt break down in the body either, and will linger for years. It can work its way through the lining of the lungs and into the abdomen. These particles are also sometimes small enough to enter the cells, and in the lungs, the fast regrowth the cells undergo as part of just living, means that lung cancer is very likely to develop.
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With asbestos, the sharp parts break off, and turn into 100 new sharp parts, asbestos can repeat this process a dozen or so more times until the spires are the same size as your DNA and proteins, and can mess them up, leading to cancer
https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/publications/working-fibreglass
“ Continuous glass filament is too thick to be breathed into the lungs.”
Here’s the official view on fibreglass from an Australian state government organisation
I find it hard to understand myself, as I was trained that all dust (even sanding timber) should be avoided.
Edit “Typically, glass wool insulation fibres are between 5 and 10 microns in diameter (a micron is one thousandth of a millimetre). However a small proportion of the fibres are fine enough (less than 3 microns in diameter) to be breathed into the lungs.”
There was a post a while back that was perhaps on r/whatsthisrock where the op found some mineral and cut it up on a chop saw. Turns out the stuff was something on par or worse than asbestos and they probably inhaled a toxic dose while cutting it. I can’t seem to find the post but would be interested to recap if somebody else could.
The shape is what makes it dangerous. Asbestos has a point like a needle, fiberglass has a flat end. Asbestos has a point even under a really powerful microscope, fiberglass will look flat. The point means it works its way into things. It can get into dna and mess with it enough that the dna makes mistakes when it copies. That is what is dangerous because cancer is just dna that made a mistake copying.
Imagine you have a cup made of glass and a cup made of plastic.
Imagine they smashed, and you put your hand in the mess.
You’d probably have little painful shards of glass stuck in your hand, but not plastic.
At a microscopic scale asbestos breaks like glass with lots of tiny tiny shards that can stick in your lung cells. Fiberglass breaks more like plastic at that scale.
People have given very good answers about asbestos but please don’t play loose with fibreglass. Sure, less dangerous, but it still can cause severe skin irritation as well as long term lung and eye damage.
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