Document mmv3X0BnrYxGq4xvDRe8z04M4

FILE NAME: Chrysler (CHR) DATE: 1987 Feb DOC#: CHR144 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Trade Journal Article - Motor - "Controlling Deadly Asbestos" i i CAr aOSeBNaETnSRiTvOOLSLING A r A IIlA r A iA Asbestos fibers cause lethal health problems. Now they cause legal health problems, too. T ime's up with 1 * * bestos, finally. The Occupational Safety and Health Ad* ministration (OSHA) passed a rule on July 21 ,19S6t affecting the appr mately 285,000 garages doing brake and clutch work, Enforcement started January 21,1987, so it's time foryou to find out how much asbestos is in the air you breathe in your shop. The lew establishes a new Permissible Exposure Level (PEL) of 0.2 fibers per cubic centimeter (f/cc) of I air. Any shop over that will be monitored often and will I have to provide respirators protective clothing and | industrial laundry service, and separate pressurised i asbestos-ftee changing rooms, showers and lunch rooms. I You probably wont be required to do all th a t Host automotive shops that do brake or clutch work are more likely to fall into the 0.1 to 0.2 f/cc "action level," according to OSHA. If this is the case in your shop, there will be changes you will hive to make. If inspector find your shop falls into the "action level" category, it wUl be regularly checked and you will have to observe particular safety standards, in cluding employee health surveillance in the form of regular checkups, and accurate records of exposure levels. There may be additional requirements imposed by your insurance company, many ofwhich are prepar ing their own tests and standards which may be more stringent than the government's are. While the government test and inspection details Motor February 1987 By Joe Woods 49 OHRYSUSR 004261 TF-209 i J f IS ,:-4 ! ' 5 ' IS * UW(J 00? WOfc1*f t wi %-<31t *lj o$ ' I no/|i ttn|{ t)All H *! 'J l, a i: 4f ad have not been determined yet, OSHA says it will enforce the new laws. At first, asbestos monitoring will be random, with special atten tion paid to shops where there are complaints or other reasons to sus pect a violation. But don't ignore the issue until you are inspected. The risks of asbestos fiber dust ex tend to the whole community. And knowledge of asbestos hazards is becoming widespread, too. With or without federal inspections, shops that cloud the air with asbestos may have to do without mechanics 0or customers once people learn about the danger. The only sensible way to protect yourself from asbestos dust is to control it in the first place. If you stay below the 0.1 tfcc "action lev el," you save money and preserve the health of everyone in the shop. Asbestos fiber dust, it turns out, is much more dangerous than was thought, and the number of work ers harmed is considerably greater, too. Researchers at New York's Mt. Sinai School of Medicine have found that nearly halfofall mechtn. % ! 1 1 i I I * M o t Some w t at tfeetfoa cortafcvrwt program is naewury tor euwy shop. ics who have worked with uncon trolled brake dust develop asbestosis, a disease affecting the lungs. Arguably, work at a Soviet nuclear plant is safer. Worst ofall, perhaps, is that it usually takes IS to 30years after exposure for the damage caused by asbestos to show up. At least with that other invisible shop threat, carbon monoxide, you (or your survivors) know immediately if you are affected. Asbestos Risks The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a report in 1386 on the prevention of asbes tos disease. In the report, the EPA listed cancers and other health ef fects caused by exposure to asbes tos. If you work in a shop where there is careless asbestos use, you could one day suffer from any of the following illnesses. Asbestoais develops when particlea of asbestos in tne lungs cause the growth of scar tissue. Scar tissue In the lungs inhibits oxygen from getting to the bloodstream, Scar tissue development is very gradual and is usually not noticed until it Is advanced. There is no treatment; there is no cure. If you have ssbestosis, you'll be buried with it, and probably sooner than you would have been otherwise. Obviously, as with any serious in jury, prevention it the only rational course of action. Lung cancer is currently the most common cause of asbestos-re lated death, and its frequency ap pears to correspond to the level of exposure. In addition, ifsomeone is smoker, the combination of that and the asbestos produces a risk much higher than you might think. Though no combination tests have been done for brake mechanics in particular, asbestos insulators who moke have a lung cancer risk over fifty times higher than nonsmoker who avoid asbestos exposure alto gether. Other cancers (voice box, stomach and large intestine) are be lieved caused by asbestos. Some of SO More* * February 1387 o w n sU R ****** the dust, as you would suppose, is swallowed. These can occasionally be treated with surgery and radi ation or chemotherapy. Mesothelioma, a cancer affect ing the lining of the chest or ab dominal cavity, is caused by asbes tos fiber dust. It is unbeatable and fatal, and it is particularly associat ed with very limited and indirect exposure, such as washing clothing contaminated with asbestos dust or even embracing someone with as bestos dust on the skin and cloth ing. What that means is that the fibers can be transported home and cause the death ofa member ofyour family, someone who had nothing to say about whether or not to ob serve safeguards. Why Asbestos? The facts are, asbestos is cheap and effective. Even with the severe health risks involved, asbestos is still used in about 15% of new cars and a somewhat higher percentage of new trucks; the larger the vehi cle, the more likely i t you'll find asbestos. The working elements of dutch and brake friction surfaces, ex haust gaskets and donuts and a few other automotive parts consist of binders, chiefly high-temperature polymers, and chrysolite asbestos, a magnesium silicate fiber with great tensile strength, heat resis tance, chemical stability and low cost Asbestos handles high hast* Even in a panic stop or a sides tepped dutch, only the tiny high points of the pad, hoe or disc actu ally touch the metal surface. The brake or flywheel is heat-conduc tive and spreads the temperature throughout, but the high pointjust gat hotter, sometimes a t high as 1850*F. The wire-like structure of the material, for all practical pur poses, does not break or melt or dis solve. But those very properties that make asbestos such an excellent material for a brake or dutch make it dangerous in the human body. Motor February 1987 0 Asbestos remains just as indestruc tible inside you as it does on brakes and clutches, if you've ever swal lowed loosened rust or siphoned gasoline, your body's fluids disas sembled the first and diluted the second and eventually carried the nauseous stuff away. Not so with asbestos: It doesn't melt; it doesn't burn; it doesn't break; it doesn't dissolve; it doesn't dilute; it doesn't digest. The risks of asbestos are more like the risks of high-voltage elec tricity, sharp-edged unshielded One: Have the KEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) vacuum cyflnder under the brake as you remove the drum. .......... -----------------------------Three: Using the sbestoe-tight glove, reech Into the cylinder end Mow ail the fibers into the vacuum eoltactor. fans, or poisonous explosive gases and fluids: Avoiding the injury is better than repairing the damage. Handling Asbestos Even five or ten years ago you could see brake mechanics blasting dust from brakes with compressed air. Blasting asbestos dust away is now illegal and generally regarded as nearly suicidal. It's as bad as running the engine in a closed shop without an exhaust hose. But most mechanics would recognize the smell of asbestos, just as readily as Two: The containment cylinder it placed around the brake and the back ing plate, leave the vacuum running. Pour: Once the asbestos dust is re moved, you can then go on to replace the breke shoes end pens as needed. 51 they can recognize the smell of 90- weight lubricant, ATF or gasoline. Ana if you've smelled b ra k es, you've inhaled asbestos. Probably the worst thing you can do to spread asbestos is to grind or bevel brakes. Bevelling shoes to re duce brake noise can release as many as 72 million measurable as bestos fibers into the air of your shop, and untold billions too small to measure. Pass on that job. If somebody's brakes are loud, but you can't find a factory-bevelled set, just let the brakes squeal. Outer mistakes indude removal by water or brake cleaner spray blast and wiping the dust off with wet or dry brushes or rags. Those latter methods also leave you with the problem of what to do with the contaminated brushes and rags. Respirators are not practical ei ther. First of ail, you would need the kind with hoses to supply out side air, which is very inconvenient in a shop. Second, everyone in the shop, office staff and customers in cluded, would have to wear one all the time. Third, respirators wouldn't control the asbestos fiber dust problem. Instead, they move dust mom the shop to the mechan ic's home, and stiu leave a layer of asbestos dust over everything in the shop. . Unfortunately, considering that almost all older cars used asbestos brakes or were relined with them, and that some new can still do, you have to assume that every ear has asbestos brakes and take precau tions accordingly. Youcan tell some non-asbestos brakes by their col or-after you have the drum off or caliper tome. But of course, if they do contain asbestos, it's too late. The fibers a r t airborne. Yes, it is very annoying when the dangers become known and the control expenses must be paid ju st as car and truck makers a rt moving away from asbestos. The risk is there anyway, and you have to con tain i t Fortunately, OSHA has found some asbestos removal techniques $2 Q There re several other HEPAvacuums on the market. With this one you blow the sir through a screen to collect the Oust. As in all HEPA asbsstos contain ment vacuums, the filter is critical, that a r t safe and effective. If you work with asbestos brakes or know someone who does, read on. These systems could extend your life. The first type of asbestos remov al system is a containment system, which surrounds the brake with a sealed cylinder or box. Each of these devices isolates the brake area and contains the asbestos dust so you can safely vacuum it up. You reach into the container, most often with asbestos-impermeable gloves, and blow the dust oft with an air gun, A high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) vacuum system draws tha asbestos dust into a canister and blows the exhaust air through a special filter. This filter is the es sential part of the equipment. It is capable of retaining any particle larger than 0.3 microns (a micron is one-thousandth of a millimeter). The systems don't easily remove asbestos dust from clutches be cause there's not much free span around a transmission or a pressure plate for the containers to fit. Therefore, containment system manufacturers recommend the vacuum attachment be used in stead. Similarly, there is difficulty fitting containers over brakes with a seized drum. The solvent-mist system, discussed below, may be more effective for both clutches and Difftrtnt HEPAvacuums fordiffer* applications. Thisone can It odd-sized military equipment. Aplexiglass box raptacas the transparentcySndertin tha otherversions. Moron February 1987 OHRYtUSA 4 2 6 4 brakes on which the drums need to be pounded off. The special HEPA filter also ex plains why the attempt to collect asbestos dust in an ordinary shop vacuum is almost as bad as blasting the dust away with an air gun: The particles go right through an ordi nary filter ana the vacuum motor spreads millions of hazardous parti cles through the air as far as 75 feet from the vacuum. The HEPA filter exceeds the le gal requirement for nitration, but this is not too much of a good thing. The law measures exposure by counting particles larger than S mi crons. Many researchers suspect the far more numerous smaller par ticles are the more dangerous ones. Five microns is not the point at which the asbestos fibers become An alternative to the HEPAvacuum fathe "bird bath" system. Flush the sbasto fibers harmless: it's the point at which into the pan withthe sotvent Butthere'e more toxic waste to dispose otwiththis system. they get expensive to count. Once the HEPA vacuum is full, you must double-bag the dust, put it in a sealed drum, and label it to indicate that it contains asbestos fi bers that can cause lung disease and cancer. Then you contract with a toxic waste hauler to dispose of the asbestos properly. The second removal system found effective by OSHA is a lowvelocity solvent mist to moisten the asbestos fiber dust until it is all tuck together. Then the entire glop is removed, solvent and all One type, called a "bird bath" be cause of the shape of its solvent col lecting pan, mes recirculating wa te r and detergent to soak off the dust. This solvent is not blasted on More Information like brake cleaner, bouncing some asbestos Into the air. Instead, it's misted on. According to OSHA, For information about asbes tos containment systems, you may contact: Hko Mlnutaman 111 South Route 53 Addison, IL 60101 (312) 627-6900 these solvents can either be applied by special sprayers attached to your air hose or from aerosol cans. The litte r might be sn economically attractive alternative for a shop Ammco Tools Wacker Park North Chicago. IL 60064 (312) 689-1111 Nliflsk of America 300 Technology Drive Malvern, PA 19355 '2 1 5 ) 647*6420 that doesn't do enough brake and clutch work to warrant buying an HEPA system. The advantage of the solvent mist is that there is a considerable savings in cost. The disadvantage is that the amount of Clayton Associates P.O. Box 569 30 Southard Avenue Farmingdale, NJ 07727 (201)938-6700 For information about asbes tos-related illnesses, contact your locai American Lung As sociation, or: asbestos-contaminated waste pro duced, including the fluid, is great er than it would be if a vacuum con tainment system were used. But finally, whether you use Control Resource System 670 Mariner Drive Michigan City, IN 46360 (219)872-5591 The White Lung Association of New York 12 Warren Street New York, NY 10019 (212) 619-2270 these methods to remove asbestos from brakes or dutches, or you avoid th at kind of work altogether, it's good to know that asbestos is being used less. And that's good for all of us. Research assistance by JeffBruinm Motor February 1887 53 HRYSU5* 00420