Posts Tagged ‘asbestos inspection firms’
The Great British Asbestos in Buildings Survey 2011 – Now Closed
Earlier this year, British asbestos campaigners launched a national survey exploring general awareness and understanding of asbestos in buildings and the regulations designed to protect UK workers from being exposed to asbestos in their workplace.
The survey was developed in conjunction with the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) the organisation that currently accredits over 100 asbestos inspection bodies to carry out asbestos surveys.
The survey was promoted across all industries via the UK’s leading trade associations and trade unions, membership organisations and industry institutions. Tradesmen, building occupiers, dutyholders, clients, FM’s, property managers of non-domestic buildings were encouraged to take the survey.
We had an overwhelming response and would like to thank all of those that took the survey.
Survey findings and results are being collated and these will be available in the next couple of weeks.
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Asbestos scandal
Viewed through an electron microscope, asbestos fibres look like thin glass straws, some no more than a fraction of a micrometre wide. If inhaled, they penetrate the soft alveoli of the lungs and the membranes that line the chest cavity. And there they stay. Over time, damaged cells can cause a malignant disease called mesothelioma, which often kills people, horribly, less than a year after diagnosis.
Before the widespread industrial use of asbestos began in the late nineteenth century, malignant mesothelioma was unheard of, yet it is now responsible for tens of thousands of deaths around the world every year. After the link between asbestos exposure and the disease was convincingly made in 1960, responsible nations eventually took strong measures to remove the mineral from commercial products and to halt mining and export. Less responsible nations did not; this is a scandal that deserves wider attention. Read More
Asbestos – understanding the risks
Asbestos continues to cause untold damage in the construction industry. Ian Rippin, commercial director of the National Laboratory Service (NLS), explains what it is, what it does and how to test for its presence
WHEN asbestos is damaged fine fibres become airborne and can be inhaled which can penetrate the lung tissue and trigger an inflammatory reaction. The body registers the problem and white blood cells are sent to engulf and attack the fibres. However, the fibres usually destroy the blood cells, causing fibrosis – irreversible scarring of the lungs.
Popular in the late 1800s, during the time of the Industrial Revolution, asbestos was used routinely as insulation for steam pipes, turbines, boilers, kilns, ovens and other high-temperature products. Previous observations of the health risks were forgotten or ignored at that time.
The first diagnosis of asbestosis was made in 1924 following the death of a woman aged thirty-three, after twenty years of working with the material. As a result of the diagnosis, a study was commissioned on asbestos workers in England, revealing twenty-five percent suffered from an asbestos-related lung disease. Laws were passed in 1931 to increase ventilation and to make asbestosis a recognised work- related disease.
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Asbestos Surveys – It’s vital workers are protected from asbestos
Builders liability insurance holders have been warned about the dangers of asbestos following the prosecution of a North Lincolnshire ship breaking company.
Acetech Construction, of New Green Farm, Barrow Haven, pleaded guilty to three breaches of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 and was fined £3,400 and ordered to pay costs of £5,000.
Scunthorpe Magistrates Court heard that Acetech purchased a Polish former fishing vessel for dismantling as scrap. Read More