White asbestos: A ticking time bomb

While 40 countries worldwide have banned the use of asbestos, the Indian government is actually discussing lifting the ban on asbestos mining imposed in 1986

With the media’s attention focussed on the Clemenceau and the dangers of dealing with asbestos in the ship-breaking process, we seem to have forgotten the dangers posed by asbestos to asbestos miners, construction workers who break up asbestos cement roofs and pipes, and ordinary people whose homes have asbestos roofs. Epidemiological research shows that even in countries where asbestos is banned, earlier exposure could be causing around 30 deaths a day.
According to the International Labour Organisation, asbestos continues to be the Number 1 carcinogen in the world. In its report titled ‘Asbestos: The Iron Grip of Latency’, the organisation says that the dumping of asbestos on developing countries will “prove to be a health time bomb in these countries in 20 to 30 years’ time”.

India has been using asbestos for more than 70 years. It consumes about 125,000 tonnes of asbestos every year, of which 100,000 tonnes are imported from Canada, Russian, Brazil and Zimbabwe. Demand is expected to grow by 15% over the next few years.

The industry seems to enjoy state support. On January 1, 2006, production began at an asbestos cement factory in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, Sonia Gandhi’s constituency. The factory belongs to Visaka Industries, one of India’s largest asbestos groups, which has asbestos cement factories in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Karnataka. The chairman of Visaka Industries is G Vivekanand, son of an MP. Visaka Industries runs asbestos plants in Midnapore, West Bengal, as well, where the major trade unions have called for a ban on asbestos and have written a letter of protest to the prime minister. States like Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu even run their own asbestos factory units.

On February 27, 2006, Minister of State for the Environment, Namo Narain Meena, stated in Parliament: “No complaints have so far been received regarding its (asbestos’) carcinogenic content and its hazard to health and the environment.”

How can the political establishment fail to acknowledge that over 40 countries around the world, including Europe, have banned all forms of asbestos including chrysotile (white asbestos) because of the health risks they pose?

In an August 2005 paper published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, titled ‘Occupational Asbestos Exposure and Predictable Asbestos-related Diseases in India’, Dr S K Dave, senior deputy director, National Institute of Occupational Health

(NIOH),concludes:“Based on knowledge of past and current exposure to asbestos in industry, we can predict a future occurrence of clinical asbestos-related diseases -- pleural changes, pulmonary fibrosis, bronchogenic carcinoma, and diffuse malignant mesothelioma. These cases of asbestos-related diseases are expected to occur in asbestos-exposed workers from mining, milling and manufacturing as well as in those with secondary exposure to asbestos-containing materials, including construction and maintenance workers, users of asbestos-containing consumer products, and occupants of asbestos-containing buildings.” Dr Dave’s surveys of asbestos-exposed workers reveal significant occupational exposure.

Although all this clearly implies that asbestos is a serious health hazard, astonishingly, officials and ministers still object to proposals of it being phased out and banned completely. The Ministry of Mines and Minerals has, in fact, proposed lifting the ban on chrysotile asbestos mining. On April 29, 2005, Minister of State for Coal and Mines, Dr Dasari Narayana Rao, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha, stated that an Indian Bureau of Mines study “has recommended that the ban imposed on grant and renewal of mining leases and expansion of mining may be lifted”. The ban on mining asbestos was imposed in phases in 1986 and 1993; there is, however, no ban on its use, manufacture, export or import.

On March 10, 2006, the Ministry of Mines and Minerals issued a statement saying: “The Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) has been asked to work out necessary safeguards/measures in consultation with the Central Pollution Control Board subject to which chrysotile asbestos mining can be permitted so as to ensure workers’ safety.” The press release asked the IBM to assess the feasibility of lifting the ban on the expansion of asbestos mining by conducting a scientific study of pollution levels in asbestos mines and processing plants in Rajasthan and in Andhra Pradesh. And to suggest appropriate mitigation measures.

Subsequently, the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC), Lucknow, carried out a series of detailed studies on asbestos-based industries in the organised and unorganised sectors. The project, sponsored by the Central Pollution Control Board, included 18 units in Beawar and Deogarh in Rajasthan (unorganised), and five units in the organised sectors of Mumbai and Aurangabad in Maharashtra. In both Beawer and Deogarh, where the technology used is poor and laws and regulations simply do not exist, there were extremely high fibre concentrations at the milling and grinding units. None of the workers used gloves, masks or protective clothing. They used the primitive manual way of grinding. Fibre concentrations here were 2-18 times higher than the Indian standard of 0.5 fibre/cc. It was also observed that in these units, not only workers but infants and children too were exposed to high amounts of asbestos, as they were found playing on heaps of asbestos. Clinical studies conducted at both types of units revealed significant lung function abnormalities among factory workers. Further, lung function tests among female workers in the unorganised sector showed greater damage than among their male counterparts, possibly due to exposure to both unprocessed biomass fuel in the home and asbestos fibre at work.

Radiological examinations revealed the prevalence of a large number of asbestosis cases in both the organised and unorganised sectors. The prevalence of asbestosis in less than five years is alarming. Asbestos bodies in the sputum of workers were detected as a mark of exposure. Cytogenetic analysis revealed a greater number of micronuclei formations in the workers’ blood – this is a biomarker for cancer.

Dr Qamar Rahman, senior scientist with the ITRC and visiting professor at Rostock University, Germany, says: “On the basis of the report and recent studies conducted at the milling units, the ban on asbestos mining should not be lifted. Mining and processing are interrelated, and conditions need to be improved at both places simultaneously. In the milling or grinding areas, fibre concentrations are very high and workers do not use gloves, masks or protective clothing. They employ primitive manual ways of grinding. The housekeeping in the units is also very bad.
“At the moment, unauthorised mining of asbestos is going on in Rajasthan and workers are heavily exposed. If the ban is lifted, conditions will further deteriorate. Keeping in view the above facts, the ban on asbestos mining should not be lifted,” said Dr Rahman in her comments to the government in a report on lifting the asbestos ban.

But the Ministry of Mines and Minerals chooses to ignore such suggestions in the same way it has ignored the plight of victims of chrysotile asbestos mining in the Roro hills, Chaibasa, Jharkhand, abandoned by Hyderabad Asbestos Cement Products Limited (now known as Hyderabad Industries Limited).

In fact, following a Supreme Court order, the Ministry of Labour constituted a special committee, under the chairmanship of S K Saxena, director general, Directorate of General Factory Advice Service and Labour, on the issue of medical benefits and compensation to workers affected by hazardous waste. The committee submitted its report in May 2004, which mentions lung cancer and mesothelioma having being caused by exposure to asbestos. But the environment ministry says it has not received any complaints so far. The Ministry of Mines and Minerals is undoing the good it did in the past by proposing to lift the ban on asbestos mining.

A short history of asbestos Asbestos is a proven carcinogenic substance. Asbestos is the generic term for a number of naturally occurring fibrous minerals. Commercially, the most important of these are the white, blue and brown varieties, otherwise known as chrysotile (a serpentine asbestos), crocidolite, and amosite (both amphiboles). Asbestos is widely distributed, but the largest deposits are found in Canada and Russia.

The first medical article on the hazards of asbestos dust appeared in the British Medical Journal in 1924. Following inquiries, the British government introduced regulations to control dangerous dust emissions at asbestos factories in the United Kingdom. Only in the 1960s, following the revelation that mesothelioma was an asbestos-related disease and that all workers, not only those employed in the dustiest parts of asbestos factories, were also at risk were the nature and scale of the hazard re-assessed.

In Europe, America and elsewhere new and increasingly strict regulations were enacted to control the hazards of asbestos. When these did not work, country after country started banning it.

Environmental monitoring and health surveys since 1984 have conducted in-depth studies on asbestos-based industries in India, highlighting vulnerable populations. It was noticed that workers occupationally exposed to asbestos have maximum impairment in their pulmonary function tests. Besides consumers, workers employed at cement-asbestos factories also suffer from exposure to asbestos. The incubation period is long; it takes as many as 25-30 years for asbestos fibres to make their presence felt in the human body. When it does, the condition is incurable. In developed countries, insurance companies have stopped covering workers employed in asbestos factories and mines.

By the mid-20th century, asbestos was an ingredient in all manner of things including motor cars (in brakes, clutch linings and gaskets), buildings (for insulation and fireproofing), warships (again, for insulation and fireproofing), domestic products (such as ironing boards) and electrical distribution systems.

Asbestos is widely used in India in the manufacture of pressure and non-pressure pipes used for water supply, sewage and drainage, packing material, brake linings and joints used in automobiles, heavy equipment, nuclear power plants, thermal power plants, etc. To meet the country’s requirements, chrysotile asbestos was imported during 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-05, to the tune of nearly 100,000 metric tonnes a year.

InfoChange News & Features, April 2006