Asbestos has to be in a “friable” form for it to be bad. The particles are so small they can get into deep your lungs.

I actually was at a landfill expansion project where a backhoe digging down through the trash hit some bags labeled asbestos. I’m glad it was raining. Also worked in a building with asbestos in the floor tiles. Fine when not disturbed, but anytime they had to remove them it was a production.

https://ehs.oregonstate.edu/asb-when

https://www.fs.fed.us/eng/toolbox/haz/haz07b.htm

In high school I helped a friend rip up the floor tiles in his basement which were probably from the 50s. Years later I realized I could have been exposed to asbestos, is there any way to know whether asbestos would have been in the particular tiles I was ripping up?

I don't have much to add, but felt I should respond.

I feel like the risk is probably less than you think (the facilities people I worked with thought it was overkill for the tiles with a small % of asbestos). but its not zero. As someone who might have been exposed (was in a vacinity), its hard because you can never really know. Also there might have been other instances where exposure might have happened and you don't know (my high school was rebuilt recently because it wasn't 'up to code" when I was going there.

Thank you

You can get the tiles tested if you still have access to any of them.

Interestingly some uses of asbestos aren’t actually banned, which is very surprising to me: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-epa-allowing-asbestos-p...

As I understand it, there's also trace levels of naturally-occurring asbestos pretty much everywhere humans live, so there's also no way to completely avoid exposure.

The impact is cumulative so unavoidable environmental exposure increases the concern about additional exposure from consumer products.

> Because there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos.

I think we are getting to the bottom of this :-)

The UK Health and Safety Executive state...

"The control limit for asbestos is 0.1 asbestos fibres per cubic centimetre of air (0.1 f/cm3). The control limit is not a 'safe' level and exposure from work activities involving asbestos must be reduced to as far below the control limit as possible."[1]

Maybe this is where the differences arise. The UK are comfortable with a minimum practical level where risks are very low, whereas the US state none at all.

Thank you for helping answer a question and not mindlessly clicking on down vote. HN is beginning to turn into Reddit rather than seeking inquisitive technical/scientific conversation.

[1] https://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/regulations.htm

That link has to deal with regulation and risk mitigation for removing Asbestos, not selling a consumer product with Asbestos.

The UK took its time but they did fully ban Asbestos in 1999.