The Trump administration has rejected a petition by a coalition of environmentalists to require more reporting of asbestos imports and use by US manufacturers – even though asbestos imports into US ports are on the rise.
The petition asked the EPA to use its powers under the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, to make importers and users of asbestos and asbestos-containing products compliant with reporting requirements and release those reports to the public.
In October, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, or ADAO, and EWG analysed import numbers, finding asbestos imports jumped by nearly 2,000 percent in July through August 2018.
As of August alone, the United States imported 272 metric tons of asbestos, up from 13 metric tons in July, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Commerce Department.
Today, asbestos is used as a raw material in the United States to make brakes for cars, asphalt roofs, and gaskets. The US consumes some 13,000 metric tons of chrysotile asbestos every year. Additionally, asbestos-cement pipes and sheets are brought in to use. We no longer use asbestos for friable insulation or materials similar to those that exposed workers to such dangerous levels over decades.
While the use of asbestos is strictly controlled in the US, ensuring that workers and consumers are not exposed to high levels of exposure to asbestos fibres, there is only one limit on what products can be manufactured using asbestos. Manufacturers may sell any asbestos-containing product that sold after or before 1989; sales of any asbestos-containing product not manufactured by 1989 require EPA clearance.
Public outrage over building asbestos – soon found to be unwarranted – spurred the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to propose an asbestos ban in the mid-1980s. This EPA proposal resulted in a plethora of data about the merits of various asbestos-containing materials, and on the human exposure to risk associated with those uses.
From that detailed record alone, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decided such a ban was unconstitutional. While the court decided that it would permit the EPA to pre-authorise the manufacture of new asbestos-based products, it concluded that all prior applications must continue.
A ban on asbestos products, the US Court determined, did not make sense:
If asbestos-containing products were developed and used under controlled conditions, there would be no major human exposure to asbestos fibres;
Substitutes for asbestos products themselves pose risks to human health that could be greater than those posed by asbestos; and
Asbestos products provide many advantages over alternative products that do not.
In the United States, asbestos-containing products, as well as the manufacture and consumption of many other potentially hazardous chemicals without a proper regulatory framework, are not only monitored by the EPA, but also by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT). The EPA controls air and water pollution from asbestos manufacturing facilities, as well as the disposal of asbestos waste.
OSHA has implemented a strict asbestos occupational health standard that mandates workers who might be exposed to asbestos are adequately trained and know how to minimize asbestos risk and establish firm limits for exposure to airborne particulates. The DOT controls asbestos transport.
Thanks to the comprehensive regime of standards that we now have in the United States, exposures to employees or the public are very low and do not pose a significant threat. At the same time, the audience enjoys the specific advantages that this mineral has as an active agent and low-cost raw material for construction and friction goods.
