About asbestos.
What it is. Why it matters.

What is asbestos?

Asbestos is the name given to a group of six naturally occurring silicate minerals with long, thin fibrous crystals. Each fibre is composed of microscopic individual fibrils that can be released into the atmosphere when the material is disturbed — and inhaled into the lungs.

Asbestos has remarkable physical properties: it's strong, flexible, heat-resistant, chemically inert and an excellent insulator. Those properties made it enormously useful in construction, shipbuilding, manufacturing and consumer products for most of the 20th century. By the 1970s, it was in everything from roof tiles to ironing boards.

The six types of asbestos

Three types of asbestos were used commercially in the UK, plus three less-common types found mostly as contaminants:

• Chrysotile (white asbestos) — the most common, used in roofing, ceiling tiles, cement products, brake linings.
• Amosite (brown asbestos) — used in thermal insulation, AIB (asbestos insulating board), pipework lagging.
• Crocidolite (blue asbestos) — the most hazardous; used in spray coatings, pipe insulation, cement products.
• Tremolite, Actinolite, Anthophyllite — rarely used commercially but sometimes found as contaminants in chrysotile-containing products and in talc.

When was asbestos banned in the UK?

The UK banned blue asbestos (crocidolite) and brown asbestos (amosite) in 1985, but white asbestos (chrysotile) remained legal until 1999. Many products manufactured before that ban remain in service today, particularly in roofing, ceilings, floors, water tanks, pipe insulation, fire-protection panels and textured coatings.

The HSE estimates that around 1.5 million UK buildings still contain asbestos in some form. In London, where housing stock skews older, the proportion is higher.

Why is asbestos dangerous?

Asbestos itself is not dangerous when intact and undisturbed. The danger comes from inhaling airborne fibres. When asbestos-containing material is broken, sanded, drilled, cut or removed without controls, microscopic fibres become airborne. Inhaled, they lodge in lung tissue and remain there permanently — the body cannot expel them.

Over time, those fibres cause:

• Mesothelioma — a cancer of the lining of the lungs or abdomen, almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure. Median survival from diagnosis is 12–21 months.
• Asbestos-related lung cancer — chemically identical to other lung cancers but caused by asbestos exposure, often combined with smoking.
• Asbestosis — fibrotic scarring of lung tissue causing progressive breathlessness and disability.
• Pleural plaques and pleural thickening — benign but evidence of significant past exposure.

The latency problem

Asbestos-related diseases typically take 20–40 years from first exposure to develop. That means deaths today reflect exposures in the 1970s and 80s — and exposures happening now will become disease in the 2040s and 50s. The HSE records around 5,000 UK deaths a year from past asbestos exposure, and that figure has only recently begun to plateau.

The regulations

The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (CAR 2012) is the principal UK regulation. Key duties include:

• Duty to manage — non-domestic property owners must take reasonable steps to find any asbestos, record it, and manage the risk.
• Notifiable work — most removal of higher-risk materials must be notified to the HSE 14 days in advance and carried out by a licensed contractor.
• Non-licensed work — lower-risk materials (cement, textured coatings, gaskets) can be removed without a licence but still require trained operatives and proper controls.
• Disposal — all asbestos waste must be transported by a registered carrier and disposed of at an authorised hazardous-waste facility, with a consignment note retained for three years.

What this means in practice

If you own or manage a building constructed or refurbished before 2000, you should assume asbestos may be present and act accordingly: get a survey, manage what's there, and remove it properly when works require disturbance. Don't sand it. Don't drill it. Don't take it to the tip. Call a licensed contractor.