The UK levels of asbestos exposure have been highlighted in a new report from ResPublica. The report describes these levels as unacceptable anywhere else in the world with school-going children in the UK exposed 10 times than their counterparts in Germany.
UK legislation allows children to be legally exposed to asbestos 10 times more than Germany. This is according to a report by ResPublica, a think tank, which is calling for the standards of exposure to be brought up to levels that can rival the strictest European countries.
Asbestos is a very toxic material that causes cancers such as lung cancers and mesothelioma. A report released in July 2017 showed that there were 2,523 deaths from mesothelioma, a type of cancer that is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure. The lining of the organs causes cancer.
A similar number of people were also estimated to have died due to lung cancer. Most of these cases had been due to exposure to asbestos.
Crisis of asbestos exposure
These high levels of asbestos exposure have been attributed to the high amount of housing structures that use asbestos as their roofing solution. It is estimated that in the UK, there are about six tonnes of asbestos spread across 1.5 million homes. 80 percent of schools in the UK use asbestos for roofing and 94% of National Health Service (NHS) trusts building also use asbestos.
This means that these children are coming into contact with contaminated air with asbestos or water that has asbestos. This exposure leads to higher rates of coming into contact with the toxic materials than other European countries such as Germany.
The report also criticized the UK regulatory regime for allowing school-going children to inhale high levels of airborne asbestos that would never be accepted anywhere else in the world. They termed this as a failure in policy that should change to protect school-going children.
UK airborne asbestos 100,000 fibers per day
The actual figures that are allowed for school-going children in the UK for airborne asbestos are 100,000 fibers per day. Comparing this to Germany, which only allows a maximum of 10,000 fibers per day, puts into perspective the level of asbestos exposure these school-going children are exposed to.
The director of ResPublica, Phillip Blond said,
The inability of our current health and safety regime to recognize and respond to the true extent of the dangers posed is even more worrying. A national health crisis awaits us and our children if we do not act now.
The report outlined why changes need to be made to address the levels of exposure to these toxic materials. It also highlighted the dangers of not exposing this problem early and argued that it might lead to more students being put on health risks due to exposure.
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