Asbestos in Mines
Asbestos is a natural mineral found in mines and has been used for thousands of years.In early uses was intended, given their hardness cookware. As for its use was spreading antiquity soon began to quickly learn about the risks associated with it. Some historians are saying that even in the age of Rome, the brightest business men knew not to buy slaves who had previously worked with asbestos, it showed problems in breathing and diet at an early age.
In the United States, asbestos is found naturally in 20 states, while their mines are in 17 of them. Many of these states are located in the Appalachian region, California and Oregon having mines. Companies that were devoted to the extraction of asbestos used extraction techniques and open mining to produce the material. The most common type of asbestos is mined chrysotile, also known as white asbestos.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s the extraction of asbestos peaked By the time the EPA finally banned most uses of asbestos and down in 1989 asbestos production. The last mine that has been operational has been the producer of chrysotile in California, and it closed in 2002. The last asbestos mine in the East Coast was the quarry north central Vermont, which also produced chrysotile, The mine closed in 1993. However, other nations including Canada still producing asbestos exporting to other countries where their use is not prohibited.
Unfortunately other mines in USA producing other materials also contained asbestos, which represented an endangered their workers. One of these is the Libby mine in Montana, which was the leading producer of vermiculite in USA. It is estimated that between 1923 and 1990, the Libby mine produced more than 70 percent of all asbestos production. The vermiculite containing asbestos was used to produce an effect known as Zonolite insulation material is still present in over 35 million homes and offices throughout USA.
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