Asbestos or not? Help required....

[RigidRaider]

I've just demolished a 1930s garage that had an asbestos cement sheet roof. I won't bore you with all the stupidity but you'd think I was trying to dispose of nuclear waste, the way the jobsworths at the tip reacted when they heard the A word. They aren't clever enough to be entrusted with judging between dangerous asbestos and asbestos that's almost completely encapsulated within a cement sheet so everything defaults to a major hazard. A nightmare, altogether.

 

[digdilem]

I stand corrected - never knew that!

But yeah, very very unlikely. I get frustrated at ill-informed hysteria from all angles whenever this stuff is mentioned. It's the extreme end of the stories supposedly blamed on "Health and safety gone mad" - often no truth or bad interpretation of the facts.

 

[Nige F]

If anyone can recommend an asbestos lab that would be great...they don't really seem to be springing up on google

I do a part time job in an asbestos lab Just send me a small sample in a sealed envelope and enclose a £50 note

 

[youmademerealise]

Update to this, from a friend of mine with a handy electron microscope

The chimney breast was uncontaminated vermiculite, well done to those who picked it

The kitchen tile fragment I sent him as an afterthought was chrysotile

Marvellous I've been hacking these up for a few weeks off and on

Here's a slightly reassuring article

http://ibe.sagepub.com/content/14/1/83.abstract

I hope so

 

[youmademerealise]

I do a part time job in an asbestos lab

Is there nothing they didn't make from asbestos?