Asbestos in electronic components

[Deefoo]

You may have heard of the problems the French government has with the
scrapping of their obsolete aircraft carrier Clemenceau because of asbestos.
Now everybody is afraid of asbestos.

The company I work for makes military equipement and now I have been asked
to certify that the electronics we produce is free of asbestos. Sigh...

Well, I guess there is no asbestos in the components we use, but I am not
100% sure. Before I certify anything, does anyone know of asbestos in
electronic components? NEC for one mentions on their website that their
products do not contain asbestos (but we don't use NEC). There seem to exist
asbestos resistors but I guess if any asbestos is used it will be found in
high-temperature stuff (which we don't use).

<rant>
Electronics is full of stuff bad for our health (beryllium, lead, whatever),
so who cares about asbestos. Oh, how I hate public (as is media) opinion.
Next is probably certifying that our products have never been in contact
with birds.
</rant>

Thanks for your help,
--DF

 

[Rene Tschaggelar]

You may have heard of the problems the French government has with the
scrapping of their obsolete aircraft carrier Clemenceau because of asbestos.
Now everybody is afraid of asbestos.

The company I work for makes military equipement and now I have been asked
to certify that the electronics we produce is free of asbestos. Sigh...

Well, I guess there is no asbestos in the components we use, but I am not
100% sure. Before I certify anything, does anyone know of asbestos in
electronic components? NEC for one mentions on their website that their
products do not contain asbestos (but we don't use NEC). There seem to exist
asbestos resistors but I guess if any asbestos is used it will be found in
high-temperature stuff (which we don't use).

<rant>
Electronics is full of stuff bad for our health (beryllium, lead, whatever),
so who cares about asbestos. Oh, how I hate public (as is media) opinion.
Next is probably certifying that our products have never been in contact
with birds.
</rant>

You best tell them this subject needs some research
in the order of a few months.

Rene

 

[John B]

On 07/03/2006 the venerable Deefoo etched in runes:

..
..

<rant> ..
..
Next is probably certifying that our products have never been in contact
with birds.
</rant>

It sounds to me as though your equipment has already been in contact with a management turkey! >:-}

 

[Rene Tschaggelar]

On 07/03/2006 the venerable Deefoo etched in runes:

.
.



It sounds to me as though your equipment has already been in contact
with a management turkey! >:-}

Yep, before it goes to the dump, I'll pay the scrap value.

Rene

 

[Ken Taylor]

You may have heard of the problems the French government has with the
scrapping of their obsolete aircraft carrier Clemenceau because of asbestos.
Now everybody is afraid of asbestos.

The company I work for makes military equipement and now I have been asked
to certify that the electronics we produce is free of asbestos. Sigh...

Well, I guess there is no asbestos in the components we use, but I am not
100% sure. Before I certify anything, does anyone know of asbestos in
electronic components? NEC for one mentions on their website that their
products do not contain asbestos (but we don't use NEC). There seem to exist
asbestos resistors but I guess if any asbestos is used it will be found in
high-temperature stuff (which we don't use).

<rant>
Electronics is full of stuff bad for our health (beryllium, lead, whatever),
so who cares about asbestos. Oh, how I hate public (as is media) opinion.
Next is probably certifying that our products have never been in contact
with birds.
</rant>

Thanks for your help,
--DF

People have been afraid of asbestos for a long time, and with good reason.
However the idea that there might be asbestos in electronic components is
bizarre, if not just patently absurd. Plenty of other lethal crap, as
someone pointed out, but not that one.

Ken

 

[[email protected]]

People have been afraid of asbestos for a long time, and with good reason.

However the idea that there might be asbestos in electronic components is
bizarre, if not just patently absurd. Plenty of other lethal crap, as
someone pointed out, but not that one.

How confident are you that fiberglass is safe?

I don't particularly care to be around when it is cut, drilled, or
especially routed.

 

[Paul Burke]

How confident are you that fiberglass is safe?

No one gives a toss how SAFE it is, just whether it's legal and not on
the list of banned substances. It's not about safety, it's about
protection of someone's arse.

Paul Burke

 

[Ken Taylor]

How confident are you that fiberglass is safe?

I don't particularly care to be around when it is cut, drilled, or
especially routed.

Why is that relevant?

Ken

 

[Richard the Dreaded Libertarian]

People have been afraid of asbestos for a long time, and with good
reason.

Oh, bullshit and bullshit. Unless you're so young that to you, "10 years
or so" is a "long time". As recently as 30 or 40 years ago, whole theater
curtains were made of asbestos, and they were proud of it - if there's a
fire in a crowded theater, you don't want the curtain contributing!

The asbestos hysteria has the same roots as all the other boogeymen,
like global warming, the ozone hole, smoking, terrorism, drugs; anything
they can scare children with.

But it has nothing whatsoever to do with common sense.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Roger Hamlett]

Oh, bullshit and bullshit. Unless you're so young that to you, "10 years
or so" is a "long time". As recently as 30 or 40 years ago, whole
theater
curtains were made of asbestos, and they were proud of it - if there's a
fire in a crowded theater, you don't want the curtain contributing!

The asbestos hysteria has the same roots as all the other boogeymen,
like global warming, the ozone hole, smoking, terrorism, drugs; anything
they can scare children with.

But it has nothing whatsoever to do with common sense.

Cheers!

There is rather more too it than that. The theatre curtains, in common
with the oil lamp wicks used by the vestal virgins, used the long strand
asbestos form (commonly crocidolite). This is the least problematical
form, and indeed in some circumstances (wet in particular), may be
considered
fairly 'safe', if handled with care (I'd personally still want to use a
mask, but the risk is several orders of magnitude 'below' that from the
other forms). Unfortunately, in insulation applications, the relative cost
of this, led to much of the short strand forms being used. The worst of
these, was amosite, and this stuff really is foul....

Best Wishes

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

People have been afraid of asbestos for a long time, and with good reason.
However the idea that there might be asbestos in electronic components is
bizarre, if not just patently absurd. Plenty of other lethal crap, as
someone pointed out, but not that one.

Ken

They used to use asbestos-insulated wire for high temperatures (eg.
for thermocouple extension wire in industrial furnaces). I think it's
mostly ceramic fiber these days, but I bet there are a bunch of dusty
rolls of it around.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[[email protected]]

There is rather more too it than that. The theatre curtains, in common
with the oil lamp wicks used by the vestal virgins, used the long strand
asbestos form (commonly crocidolite). This is the least problematical
form

Also on the theater curtains, likely not the curtain you see, but
rather a special fire curtain that stays rolled up out of sight, until
someone pulls it's deployment rope in an emergency. The idea is to
isolate the audience area from whatever light/special effect/etc just
blew up on stage.

The implication is that the asbestos fabric curtain isn't getting waved
about opening and closing on a daily basis - it's rolled up fairly safe
and immobile until needed... or accidentally deployed.

 

[Deefoo]

Oh, bullshit and bullshit. Unless you're so young that to you, "10 years
or so" is a "long time". As recently as 30 or 40 years ago, whole theater
curtains were made of asbestos, and they were proud of it - if there's a
fire in a crowded theater, you don't want the curtain contributing!

The asbestos hysteria has the same roots as all the other boogeymen,
like global warming, the ozone hole, smoking, terrorism, drugs; anything
they can scare children with.

But it has nothing whatsoever to do with common sense.

Cheers!
Rich

I've been told that there are asbestos beaches on Corsica. People get killed
on these beaches, not because of the asbestos fibers, but because they get
slammed on it when the sea is high...

--DF

 

[Ken Taylor]

Oh, bullshit and bullshit. Unless you're so young that to you, "10 years
or so" is a "long time". As recently as 30 or 40 years ago, whole theater
curtains were made of asbestos, and they were proud of it - if there's a
fire in a crowded theater, you don't want the curtain contributing!

The asbestos hysteria has the same roots as all the other boogeymen,
like global warming, the ozone hole, smoking, terrorism, drugs; anything
they can scare children with.

But it has nothing whatsoever to do with common sense.

Cheers!
Rich

Bullshit and bullshit. Okay, so I'm under 90 and 10 years isn't too
long, but when I entered the workforce about 30 years ago buildings were
being stripped of asbestos *very carefully* back in Australia. The
effects of asbestos were well known by then - the result of studies of
the effects of the stuff on miners and people living around them. (This
in Australia - I can remember even earlier than entering the workforce
seeing a BBC documentary on the effects of asbestos on people in a
manufacturing plant in England, and how it was affecting people in the
surrounding towns.

"Common sense" isn't.

Ken

 

[Jim Thompson]

Bullshit and bullshit. Okay, so I'm under 90 and 10 years isn't too
long, but when I entered the workforce about 30 years ago buildings were
being stripped of asbestos *very carefully* back in Australia. The
effects of asbestos were well known by then - the result of studies of
the effects of the stuff on miners and people living around them. (This
in Australia - I can remember even earlier than entering the workforce
seeing a BBC documentary on the effects of asbestos on people in a
manufacturing plant in England, and how it was affecting people in the
surrounding towns.

"Common sense" isn't.

Ken

But it IS/WAS hysteria. INSTALLED asbestos poses virtually NO threat.
However it is potentially dangerous to mine workers and installers.

...Jim Thompson

 

[Ken Taylor]

But it IS/WAS hysteria. INSTALLED asbestos poses virtually NO threat.
However it is potentially dangerous to mine workers and installers.

...Jim Thompson

It's hysteria if taken to extremes (and maybe it is in places), however
down this way (Australia/New Zealand) the reg's say leave it if it's
there, remove/replace it properly/safely if it's damaged or has to be
worked on. The stuff is dangerous if buggered about with, which is
unfortunately what people love to do with things, so it makes sense to
get rid of it in an orderly fashion.

OP's post indicates a nonsense reaction by clerical arse-coverers and
he's lumped with the impossible task of saying something is 100% safe.
Not my pick of jobs.

Ken

 

[Charlie Edmondson]

But it IS/WAS hysteria. INSTALLED asbestos poses virtually NO threat.
However it is potentially dangerous to mine workers and installers.

...Jim Thompson

Yep, if you just leave it there, it is great, environmentally friendly,
and a good fireproof insulator. From what I understand, the really
carcinogenic stuff was only from a few places in Africa, but the stuff
normally used is safe. However, when it came to legislating about it,
it was too difficult for the congress critters and envirowhackos to
understand that there were DIFFERENT KINDS of asbestos, so they just
banned all of it...

Charlie

 

[Jim Thompson]

Yep, if you just leave it there, it is great, environmentally friendly,
and a good fireproof insulator. From what I understand, the really
carcinogenic stuff was only from a few places in Africa, but the stuff
normally used is safe. However, when it came to legislating about it,
it was too difficult for the congress critters and envirowhackos to
understand that there were DIFFERENT KINDS of asbestos, so they just
banned all of it...

Charlie

Arizona is full of "flocked" ceilings (asbestos mixed with plaster)
with excellent thermal and acoustic insulating properties. It is
easily 'neutered" by spray-painting it, but you lose some of the
acoustic noise reduction in the process.

...Jim Thompson

 

[SioL]

The asbestos hysteria has the same roots as all the other boogeymen,
like global warming, the ozone hole, smoking, terrorism, drugs; anything
they can scare children with.

But it has nothing whatsoever to do with common sense.

I disagree. Coincidentally I just found this by accident yesterday, its a good read.

http://reports.eea.eu.int/environmental_issue_report_2001_22/en/Issue_Report_No_22.pdf

Talks about the many poisons of the modern age and the many decades it usually took
to realize the damage and ban their use.

Talks about azbestos, PCB, DES, hormones, ozone hole and other topics.
Contains a nice historic overview, I just skimmed through it for an hour or so.
Plenty of references, too.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Yep, if you just leave it there, it is great, environmentally friendly,
and a good fireproof insulator. From what I understand, the really
carcinogenic stuff was only from a few places in Africa, but the stuff
normally used is safe. However, when it came to legislating about it,
it was too difficult for the congress critters and envirowhackos to
understand that there were DIFFERENT KINDS of asbestos, so they just
banned all of it...

Charlie

Probably due to the appalling working conditions in South African
mines and mining towns.

"The dust was everywhere. It lay up to an inch thick. There were no
warnings, nothing. Children played in it. I lived half a kilometre
from the factory but in order to drink I had to scrape a layer of
asbestos off the top of my water jar."


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany