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These are banned fibres found in millions of homes. They are characterised by a thickness of less than 3 μm and a 3:1 ratio.
Most experts believe that all asbestos can cause cancer even when exposure is minimal.
The World Health Organization (WHO) sets the maximum asbestos load at 200 fibers per cubic metre of air. However, the current limit value in Spain is 100,000 fibers/m3 for workers at risk of exposure.
Asbestos fibers can nowadays be detected everywhere, even in the Antarctic.
In Spain, the use and commercialization of asbestos has been definitively prohibited since 2002, but previously it was used in a large number of products for building and daily life, such as coatings, corrugated Uralite roofing, projected plaster, air conditioning and sanitation installations, flooring and many others.
In many of the products the fibres are not released or are released very slowly. Other times the material is in poor condition and the fibres are released continuously. The worst situations occur whenever drilling, scraping, breaking, sanding, etc. is done.
If asbestos fibre contamination is suspected, air sampling is performed in the house using special pumps.
The recommended method is MTA/MA-051 of the Instituto Nacional de Seguridad e Higiene en el Trabajo “Determination of asbestos and other fibers in air. Membrane filter method/phase contrast optical microscopy.”
A measured volume of air is passed through a filter which captures the suspended fibers.
Asbestos fibres are deposited on a filter and counted in the laboratory. Based on the volume of air sampled, the fibre concentration in the air is calculated for each sample.
Depending on the case, products containing asbestos must be removed by authorized specialized companies that comply with the strictest safety measures.
It may make sense to keep asbestos-containing building materials (e.g., with tightly bound fibers and no deterioration) in the house by simply checking or insulating them.
Rambla Salvador Samà, 47
Vilanova i la Geltrú – Barcelona
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