Tradespeople, and, it seems, builders and gasfitters particularly, are risking developing the incurable cancer mesothelioma and other serious lung diseases through ignorance about how to handle asbestos, the British Lung Foundation has warned.
Asbestos may, the Executive emphasises, be present in any building constructed or refurbished before 2000. While the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 (which became law on 13 November 2006) prohibit new use of all forms of asbestos and continued the ban introduced on its blue and brown forms in 1985 and 1999 respectively, providing existing asbestoscontaining materials are in good condition, they may be left in place, although their condition must be monitored and managed to ensure they are not disturbed. The Regulations require mandatory training for anyone liable to asbestos fibre exposure. However the survey suggests widespread ignorance, indicating more needs doing to educate tradespeople about the potential dangers.
Less than a third of the 399 respondents were aware asbestos can cause cancers, only 12% knew exposure can kill, and nearly a third wrongly believed most asbestos has been removed from UK buildings. Three quarters had had no proper training in dealing with asbestos.
Alarmingly, over one in ten had “felt under pressure to continue working” even on suspecting asbestos’s presence, over a quarter mistakenly assume some levels of asbestos are safe; and four out of five “never, rarely or only sometimes” ask if the site they are working on has been checked before starting work.
