[timr]

> Everything I've read and heard seems to indicate that the panic around asbestos might be overblown. Asbestos is unsafe but it is a matter of degrees.

Oh definitely. Like, if you ask the EPA, they'll tell you that there's "no safe level of exposure"...which is true at a population level (and completely understandable for a regulatory body to say), but terrorizes the kind of people who panic at the idea of chemicals.

You don't want to be breathing the stuff when it's floating in the air, but people absolutely freak out over the idea of being near anything containing asbestos, even if the stuff is sealed in plastic or ceramic -- tons of old floor tiles contained it, for example. That's pretty obviously harmless, unless you grind it up and aerosolize it, but it triggers the same level of response as fraying asbestos pipe insulation.

[cmrdporcupine]

Part of what we're dealing with here is that asbestos present in a home harms not only your health but... potentially the perceived $$ value of your home. Your biggest financial investment.

[timr]

I'm not just talking about homes. Plenty of schools, museums and other public places spend huge amounts of money removing otherwise undisturbed asbestos.

That said, it's more-or-less the same thing with old homes -- the "we found asbestos; give us a discount" thing is not really about rational perceptions of risk. If you buy an old home, you basically have to assume that it's going to have asbestos in it.

[hedora]

Banning asbestos prevents people from using asbestos in new houses / remodels. We bought a house, and only later found out that the materials used in its post-2000 remodel contained asbestos.

[sidewndr46]

Believe it or not, that isn't even correct. The original ban allowed the usage of existing stocks of materials in all forms of construction until depleted. There is no tracking of all materials containing asbestos that were ever imported. Somewhere today there are still new builds going in with asbestos in them as a result.

[timr]

Yeah, I get it. I'm not making an argument about banning the stuff in new construction.

[cmrdporcupine]

> spend huge amounts of money removing otherwise undisturbed asbestos.

I mean, the legitimate concern here is that someone accidentally disturbs it, and in a stupid way, and now your kids are exposed.

Even floor tiles, I assume if you cut into them with the wrong kind of saw in the wrong conditions could be spreading fine particles. Maybe.

In any case, people don't behave rationally around risk. Nor do they understand statistics (evidence: lottery tickets get sold). But at the same time, overall it doesn't really hurt to get rid of this stuff, if done properly.