Asbestos kills at least 3,000 people every year in the UK, and the numbers are rising. But there is a real change in the picture that this paints - because what was once a threat to workers in manufacturing (and overseas in mining as well), has become a real risk to health for people engaged in building maintenance. Already a quarter of those dying worked in the building trades - as plumbers, electricians, carpenters, joiners, shop fitters. Blue and brown asbestos are now banned substances, they cannot be imported or used, but along with white asbestos there still remains tonnes of this killer in buildings erected before 1980.
Unless in the future we adopt working practices which assume that exposure to asbestos in these buildings is likely, we shall all be at risk of inhaling fibres that can cause mesothelioma. It is this danger of cancer, and an inoperable and invariably fatal cancer at that, which demands the attention of every professional premises manager.
Read more..... as Steve McCrorie, Head of Occupational Health & Hygiene at Sypol, part of the Alcumus Group discusses the right way to deal with asbestos in premises
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
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