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Asbestos is strong, fire-resistant, flexible and a good thermal insulator. These qualities encouraged its use in a variety of products. It is used for thermal insulation, fire proofing, acoustic insulation, roofing, flooring and in a variety of other building materials.

People are known to have uses asbestos materials for over a thousand years. However its use became much more from the early 1900's onwards since which time it has been used in thousands of construction, industrial, maritime and consumer products.

Asbestos-containing products include:-

building and construction materials 

(asbestos cement pipe, insulating cement, insulating block, pipe covering, acoustical panels/plaster, fire brick, vinyl-asbestos and asphalt-asbestos floor tile, linoleum backing, ceiling tile, duct insulation for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, roofing felt, transite furnace flue, transite shingles and sidings, insulated electrical wire and panels, fireproofing spray, fire door interiors, refractory and boiler insulation materials)

textiles 

(e.g. asbestos cloth in fireproof aprons, glassblower mitts)

caulking compounds and pains 

(mastics, adhesives, coatings, joint compound, putty, acoustical textures)

friction products 

(brake linings, clutch assemblies and gaskets).

Some of these products contained a very high proportion of asbestos, while others contained only small amounts. 

These asbestos materials were widely used in the UK in industrial sites, homes, schools, shipyards and commercial buildings until the late 1960's when health dangers associated with their use became more widely known. A lot of asbestos material was then removed from the 1970's onwards. This involved further exposure of workers to asbestos as they removed the materials from old buildings.

Trades Involving Asbestos Exposure

Asbestos-containing products have been widely used, in one form or another, across a range of industries including shipbuilding and repair, railways, building construction and maintenance, power stations, steelworks, and motor vehicle industries.

As a consequence people from a wide range of occupations may have been exposed to airborne asbestos fibres :

asbestos factory employees

aerospace workers

automobile mechanics

boilermakers

boilermen 

bricklayers

carpenters

coal miners

construction workers

dockers 

electricians

general builders 

insulation engineer

iron workers

lab technicians 

laggers

merchant navy cadets 

merchant navy deck officers 

non-asbestos factory employees 

plasterers

plumbers

refractory bricklayers in power stations 

window fitters 

sheet metal workers

shipyard workers

steam fitters

tile setters

turbine/boiler operators in power stations

welders

Workers in old buildings can also be exposed to asbestos used in the construction materials

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