Keep Your Guard Down

[Mechanic]

The throat heater had to be replaced and it is packed in asbestos under the throat of the crucible. The wiring of the pot comes in at the bottom of the pot. So the asbestos had to be removed.

[John Cornelisse]

the unknown dangers of Asbestos...

Those dangers were known already from a time around 1920-1930 ! At that time already there were cases described of
asbestos cancer - mesenthelioma - cancer of the lung fleeces and other deseases caused by the inhalation of asbestos dust.

this all was ignored by the producers of asbestos materials, they could do this, because the rather long incubation times:

- 30 to 40 years for mesenthelioma
- 10 to 20 years for COPD

Asbestos has some superior technical properties,  and who cares about the health of
your workforce, when you can make an easy profit ?

The long incubation times did made it difficult for the people who worked with asbestos to proof in court that their
health was distroyed through the asbestos dust... Many people did get their first complaints
when they were working elsewhere, and that made it hard to proof the connection with
their former employer.

Even now, it is difficult to get compensation, because lawyers  always try to stall the lawsuits...

Safety measures are only implied when it is more costly for your employer to ignore the obvious facts.