Asbestos is a deadly material that poses a serious health risk to anyone working in or occupying a building in the UK that is more than 20 years old. Breathing in Asbestos fibres could cause diseases that are both deadly & incurable.

In 1880, when Asbestos first started being used in the UK, we had no idea of the dangers to an individual's health. By the 1920's it was starting to show it's devastating effects. Doctors and GP's started to notice that patients who had worked with Asbestos were contracting some strange new diseases and were dying at much younger ages than expected at the time. This needed to be investigated further, so they asked the Government if some research could be carried out on Asbestos to determine if that was indeed the cause of these new issues. the Government agreed to have it done, however they decided to hand the job over to the Asbestos industry leaders at the time. This lead to poor quality research, bribed scientists and eventually the heavily influenced results of the studies concluded that Asbestos fibres posed a minimal danger to peoples' health.

By 1930 new regulations were introduced aiming to decrease the levels of Asbestos exposure for workers in the Asbestos processing industry, however this really should have been the point where the deadly dust was banned completely.

It wasn't until 1985 - 105 years after Asbestos first made it's way into the lungs of people in the UK - before the government were able to acknowledge the risk to health from it and put the first bans in place. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions died from breathing fibres released by this building material. Of course most of those deaths would not be attributed it, cause of death was most likely put down to Covid. This wasn't even the end of our problems with Asbestos.

From '85 to 1999 it was still legal to use White Asbestos (often considered to be the least dangerous of the Asbestos types, but none the less sill deadly if it gets into the lungs) in building materials and some people even continued to illegally use the other types that had been banned.

Since 1999 all use Asbestos has been banned, however there is still the issue of all the Asbestos that has been used previously. The way the law is written allows for Asbestos containing materials to be left in place in buildings as long as they can be kept in good condition. Anyone should be able to see that this is not a solution, rather pushing the problem further down the line for future generations to have to deal with. How many more decades will people have to live with the risk of exposure to Asbestos due to accidental damage, buildings falling into disrepair or being damaged by the elements as we face more adverse weather conditions? 

We the people should demand that the UK Government be held responsible for the past failings to protect the people, and make good by subsidising the cost of Asbestos removal from all buildings in the UK, effective immediately.

Furthermore, the current method for Asbestos disposal is ineffective - usually it is buried at specific landfill sites however that then means the land can never be used for anything else. A company called Thermal Recycling has recently developed and proven a process to denature Asbestos containing materials and even allow them to be recycled and reused safely. It is highly recommended that this option be taken to prevent the unnecessary waste of land caused by the traditional disposal methods.