Today many people still do not understand what is asbestos? Simply defined asbestos is a natural combination of silicate minerals. However, today the environmental agency have categorised six naturally occurring form of asbestos, however, asbestos is more commonly categorised into three types.
Types of Asbestos
The first is Serpentine White, also known as Chrysotile, which can be found all around the world and is arguably the most common form of asbestos. Characteristically, Chrysotile is more flexible compared to other forms, historically it was spun into a thread and into a fabric. Recent contemporaries commonly interweaved Chrysotile into the manufacture of corrugated cement roof sheets for outbuildings. The other two forms of asbestos are Amphibole formats, firstly Amphibole Brown also known as Amosite is mainly found in Africa. Amosite was generally used as a fire retardant in thermal insulation items. And finally Amphibole Blue also known as Crocidolite primarily located in southern Africa and Australia, it was also used extensively in a variety of household products.
The history of Asbesto
Historically asbestos has been used for hundreds of years, with historical documents recording its first use by the Greeks in the 5th century BC. The mineral was named by the Greeks and has been listed as a natural mineral in a number of original Greek and Roman texts. Since its discovery historical records show that people around the world have been using asbestos products and materials.
Asbestos has been used for a multitude of purposes, Greek and Egyptian historians have explained that they used asbestos fibres in a variety of ways, from lamp wickes to burial clothing, due to the materials ability to withstand varing temperatures of heat. While historical evidence has also proven that the Roman Empire wove asbestos into tablecloths, while the inhabitants of Lake Juojarvi in East Finland used the material to strengthen pots and cooking utilises. Global explorers such as Marco Polo noticed that asbestos was used as clothing in China, while wealthy Persians also used it as a party trick, showing how it could be easily cleaned by fire. Asbestos became ever popular during the Industrial Revolution, with many historians explaining that by the mid 1800′s the material could be found in approximately every building, to either insulate pipes, walls, ovens and boilers.
Asbesto causes health problems
While asbestos may have been used throughout human history, including recent history where up to the 1960s asbestos was used for a number of products, globally it was used as home insulation, the fibres of asbestos were also used in car brake pads and even artificial Christmas snow called flocking. Today, however, there is now an EU ban on all extraction, use and manufacturer of asbestos products due to its direct links with health problems. If directly inhaled or prolonged exposure to asbestos it can cause serious illness, including malignant lung cancer and asbestosis. Although, environmental and health associations only began to have suspicions of the affects of asbestos in the 1930′s, hundreds of years earlier Greek philosophers had already noticed the affect of asbestos on the human lung after monitoring the Greek slaves who extracted the mineral from the mines.
