Asbestos And The Environment

Asbestos is fibrous and microscopic and is a set of six minerals which are silicate in nature.These six minerals are actonite,amosite,anthophylite chrysotile, crocidolote and tremolite. From these subdivions the most common in the living environment are amosite and chrysotile. (Mesothelioma.com, 2016)

Asbestos has varying properties.It has the inherent properties of fire resistance and its ability to resist heat is well known. It is durable and has the ability to resist the progression of chemical reactions. It is a good sound absorber and has reasonable to good tensile strengths. (Mesothelioma.com, 2016)

Due to its good inherent structural properties it is widely used in industry, It can be used as an insulator to electrical wiring. It is

This is extremely beneficial as many a time those from the working class community are not formally educated and are unaware of dangers in the environment. These awareness regulations make employees aware about the safe use and maintenance of equipment as well as educating them about the dangers and risk in taking home asbestos equipment and protective. It also requires employers to ensure that each employee should be familiar with the limits set in the Occupational Exposure Limit. It also targets that employees be educated in dealing with asbestos in the event of spillage or accidental spillages. Training should be carried out at least once a year by employers or more than this as per regulation. Employees should be taught how to do record keeping of asbestos concentrations. It is the employees duty to put into practice all the education and training that he has been equipped with, especially with regards to protective clothing, use of equipment and disposal of asbestos. (Department of labour,

The offences and penalties should a person be found guilty of violating any regulation of the act is a maximum of a fine of R1000 which seems quite low. One could argue that this was a long while ago and the act was published in 2001(Department of labour, 2001). However considering inflation the price of a R1000 fine then would be approximately R2300 equivalent in 2016. (Inflationcalc.co.za, 2016) This fine seems quite low especially considering that average income of employers in the construction industry is quite high, thus this could have resulted in the act not receiving the due importance and attention. Another setback of the act is that it does not have temporary guidelines on what measures could be employed to control and prevent exposure to asbestos in the event of natural or man made disaster. These disasters release very large amounts of emmisions into the air and if not properly controlled quickly could lead to an epidemic. . (Department of labour,