All Hazards

Asbestos Toxicity

Asbestos was not used in ceramic body or glaze formulations, it was used to make insulating boards and blankets for kilns and furnaces. It performed extremely well as a refractory and has been difficult to replace. A number of man-made fibers have been developed but these also carry health hazards and have proven less suitable for other reasons. Soluble fibers are notable, they dissolve over time in the lungs. However they are not as refractory.

Asbestos is a fibrous magnesium silicate, like talc. Talc producers have been targeted by this association, and some have been driven out of business in recent years. However talc is such an essential industrial mineral that millions of tons are produced annually. Talc suppliers have survived the wave of litigation through a combination of legal strategies, regulatory defences, restructuring, and market shifts. Talc continues to be widely used in ceramics, workers in the industry take measures to be able to work with it safely.

Asbestos hazards are well known and related to the particle shape and size and the ease with which these can be trapped deep within the air pockets of the lungs. Like crystalline quartz, asbestos toxicity requires chronic exposure to airborne dust of dangerous particle size and sufficient concentration (or to high levels of dust over a shorter period). Both are classed group 1 carcinogens by the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer). However, asbestos is far more lethal and uniquely associated with mesothelioma, which does not occur with quartz exposure (it produces silicosis). Both can produce lung cancer. Asbestos fibers are long, thin, and biopersistent. They lodge deep in the lungs and persist for decades, triggering chronic inflammation and genetic damage. Crystalline silica particles are angular and produce lung damage, but they are less persistent. Silica (the powdered form of quartz) has no substitutes and will always be used in ceramics, like for talc, to prevent silicosis workers take precautions when exposed to respirable dust.

Companies that used or use asbestos have been mandated to create websites to manage legal claims against them, especially by their workers. Those workers have recourse because they were exposed over enough time and concentration for harm to result. These websites were also instrumental in litigation against talc companies.

By Tony Hansen Follow me on

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