Did you know that of all of the things most likely to kill you, the hazards associated with the environment are right on up there in the top few?
Although people often think of exposure, starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, shock, etc. when they ponder worst case environmental conditions, these are far from the most common life takers. Underlying health concerns resulting from exposure to hazardous substances like lead, asbestos, or carcinogenic compounds like trichloroethane, or benzene are often much more damaging to human life.
We live mostly in a modern world with access to technology and devices and inside of walls that are made of both natural and synthetic materials. In some cases, we made things with environmental substances that were hazardous before we knew they were- before we knew what we were really doing.
Asbestos was finally outlawed for most commercial and residential purposes in the 1970's, and led to revolutionary ideas about environmental protections and safety. Lead, Asbestos, Mold, and Heavy Metals are all potentially hazardous to your health, and as a result of close examination and careful study, we have been able to prevent great suffering by ceasing our use of asbestos.
Asbestos and other natural materials are often hazardous to our health. Even oil and gasoline are potentially hazardous to our health in the right or wrong context, depending on how you look at it.
Although the presence of low-level asbestos contamination in the environment makes it impossible to eliminate your exposure risks completely, there are strategies you can use to decrease those risks. With the goal of reducing asbestos exposure, the team at Asbestos.com created the guides linked below to help you limit environmental exposure and adverse minimize health impacts.
In addition to these guides, additional information on Asbestos and the resulting condition, mesothelioma, can be found below:
In my next article, I'll discuss unintended consequences and benefits, and how it is often the case that we don't know everything.
Thanks for reading!