Asbestos, if you're born before the 80s, you know about asbestos because it was everywhere. If you're born later than that, you know about it because if you're a loved one who's exposed to it and have met with Hyliuma, you should call a lawyer. Today I'm going to tell you what it is, what it does, what its history is, and what its present is. Let's start off with what asbestos actually is. I wouldn't blame if you thought asbestos was some sort of crazy man-made chemical, but it's actually a readily available mineral. It's just in the ground. Asbestos is what's called a silicate, meaning it's made of silicone and oxygen. The mother silicate you might have heard of are sand, cement, technically glass, and talc. You might have actually seen talc in the news recently because there's been a lot of lawsuits regarding baby powder causing cancer. The reason for this is talc and asbestos often occur together, and it's very hard to keep the asbestos out of the talc and powder. What makes asbestos different from these other silicates though is the form it takes. Since I've been a little round thing like sand, it comes out in a shape that reminds me of the natural socks that a hobbit's come with. There are six main kinds of asbestos. Crystal tile, actinolite, amacite, anthophyllite, cross-sidolite, and tremolite. Crystal tile is the most common asbestos in the US, about 90% of what is found in buildings is crystal tile. It's also known as white asbestos. Cross-sidolite also known as blue-specis was very commonly used as well. It's very common in Australia. In fact, Australia has its own Chernobyl called Wittenum in it's because of asbestos. Wittenum was a pretty large asbestos mining operation because it has a lot of it just naturally in the ground there. In fact, in the area you can often see just blue patches of ground or stones. It's just asbestos. In 2022, the last resident of Wittenum was evicted by the government. The area is now covered in warning signs warning about the dangers of the asbestos, but apparently you can still often find people sneaking into it to take pictures for Instagram. Asbestos isn't toxic in the same way as like battle snake poison, cyanide, rainbow-succeeds, lobbies, or anything like that. The danger in asbestos is that the little fibers can break off and then they'll go in your lungs and then the fibers wedge themselves into the tissue of your lungs. And because they're essentially glass they never decompose, they just stay in there like they pay rent. We're not sure the exact way they cause cancer, but there are three leading theories. The first theory is that the fibers are actually small enough that they can go in and actually damage the individual strands of DNA just by stabbing it. Then this damage DNA replicates itself and becomes cancer. The second theory is that these fibers somehow become a catalyst to create what are called reactive oxygen species. These are oxygen-based chemicals that can cause various kinds of DNA damage which can lead to cancer. The most common of these is peroxide. The last theory is that as the fibers sit in your lungs, they're constantly causing damage or just tearing up your lungs like those coconut crabs tore up a billion air heart. And as this constantly causes cell destruction and inflammation over time, it increases the chance of a cancer cell being created. People have been making stuff out of asbestos about as long as they've been making stuff. In fact we have found clay pots with asbestos in them that were finished in Finland 4500 years ago. Having asbestos in the pots would have been useful because the asbestos fibers kind of hold the ceramic together and make it stronger. We do something similar to this in modern times we put fiberglass around brick buildings to keep it from falling over in earthquakes. Asbestos cloth was used by many ancient civilizations. We have accounts of it being used in Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Persia, and India. It had a couple main uses back then. An interesting use for it was it was often used in temples and tombs because they would put it in the wicks of the lanterns and then they could just keep filling it with oil and the wick would never die. It was also used for like fancy ceremonial dress or like the good tablecloths that a king would have. These kings including Charlemagne would wait for the tablecloths and napkins to get dirty at official functions and then throw them in the fire and like freak everyone out and then pull them out and they're cleaned. Maybe Charlemagne continuously showing his guess how cool it is to burn things. As part of why the people who now live in his former empire just love burning things in the streets. Another interesting use for this asbestos cloth is that they would put kings inside asbestos funeral shrouds and then cremate them and it would keep the king's ashes in the shroud away from the wood ash. You want to experience something similar at home, take a banana, still in its peel and make a slit in it kind of like a hot dog bun. Then you can stuff that slit with like chocolate, marshmallows, nuts and candy. Then wrap the entire banana in aluminum foil and then you can put it next to like a campfire or on the grill or in the oven until it gets all warm and gooey inside. And then you have the banana boat which is a lovely dessert and when you eat it you can think about eating a dead king. Famed pool game inventor Marco Polo also gave accounts of seeing asbestos minds in his travels in Asia. The interesting thing is that at this time it was already known that asbestos wasn't necessarily good to breathe in. We don't have the actual source material but we do think either plenty the elder or plenty the under described the fact that the asbestos miners in the empire would get lung issues. Apparently we don't know which one said this though because we just have it referenced in other books from near the time but we don't have the original book. Asbestos didn't really hit its heyday though till the industrial revolution. This became a very big deal at this time partially because mining equipment was created that allowed it to be extracted quicker and also the fact that big factories became a thing and their equipment needed fireproof insulation. This led to asbestos becoming very big business. This led to the creation of huge asbestos minds in different places in the world including Italy, Quebec, Staten Island, South Africa and then before mentioned Australia. Asbestos ended up being used in quite a few things, some you could probably name off the top of your head, some are a little weirder. Some of the things you might guess is it was used in things like floor tile, it was used in fireproof doors, it was used in the fire suits that like firemen and race car drivers use. It was used to make the curtains at theaters because there was a lot of issues with those catching on fire and killing everyone in the building. Also famously asbestos was used in break pads until quite recently. It was also used in some things you wouldn't think of like making dental casts or filtering wine or making gas mask filters. Also famously there was a company called Kent that had their micronite wine of cigarettes. These were cigarettes that their filter was filled with blue asbestos and crepe paper. In the world of RPGs this is called stacking debuffs. A big building material that this was used for a lot was they would mix the asbestos with concrete and use it to make like panels for the outside of houses. The trade name for this product was Fiberalite, which kind of sounds like it would make you poop better. Fiber used a lot especially post-World War II and places where they needed to rebuild buildings quickly. You can actually still find some of these little temporary houses in parts of Europe especially England that they made and they don't really know what to do with now because they're made of asbestos. Another place it was common was in Australia and Queensland actually has a special law that you cannot pressure watch these houses because it'll spread the asbestos. A spedos are to be banned or at least heavily regulated in the 80s and 90s. Currently 66 countries have complete bans on asbestos. The EVA tried to completely ban asbestos in the US in 1991 with the asbestos ban and phase out rule. Unfortunately a complete ban was struck down by the courts in the ruling corrosion proof fittings versus the environmental protection agency. They were able to ban it in the use of corrugated paper, rolled board, commercial paper, specialty paper, and flooring felt. They were also able to ban any new use of asbestos. The Clean Air Act also banned asbestos pipe insulation, asbestos block insulation on components like boilers, water tanks, and spray applied surfacing asbestos containing materials. The Consumer Product Safety Act bans asbestos in artificial fireplace embers and wallpatching compounds. Also the FDA has largely gotten asbestos out of pharmaceuticals and food. The most common uses for asbestos in the US today are automobile clutches, brake pads, corrugated sheeting, imported cement pipe, and roofing materials and vinyl tile still. There are a few countries that still heavily mine asbestos. 53% of new asbestos mine is mined in Russia, followed by Kazakhstan was 16%, China with 15%, and Brazil with 11.5%. About 70% of actual products being made out of asbestos are made in Asia, the largest producers being China, India, and Indonesia. At this point you may be wondering, what do we do with hold asbestos? In most places asbestos is dealt with by just kind of putting it in containers that are airtight and then burying it in special landfills that are marked off that it has this. There are actually though a few ways to permanently dispose of asbestos by turning it into other things. If you remember from the beginning of the video, asbestos is just a kind of silica, so there's a few ways that we can melt it down so that it is no longer in fiber's form so that it is not dangerous. If you get it above about 1000 Celsius or 1800 Fahrenheit, it'll just kind of belt into other kinds of silica. If you get it above 1200 and 150 Celsius or 2300 Fahrenheit, it'll become a silicate glass. Also if you take some asbestos and fire very strong microwaves at it, you can turn it into various kinds of ceramic and porcelain. Also if you put it in oxalic acid and hit it with some ultrasound, it'll just kind of dissolve. So if you find something made out of asbestos, the best thing you do is in the US you can call the EPA in other countries, I'm sure you have something similar and they will be able to instruct you on how best to get rid of it. Try to not move it and don't let anything scrape it because you don't want those fibers getting into the air. I hope you found this informative and entertaining and just remember asbestos is not the best