Russia Uses Trump to Support Asbestos Production
The United States stopped mining asbestos in 2002. Yet asbestos is still on the world market. It must come from somewhere, but where?
No matter how much health advocates bother them about it, Russia is still a huge producer of asbestos. In Russia there is a city called Asbest, which is russian for asbestos. It is not unheard of to name a city that produces asbestos Asbestos. Canada has a city named Asbestos but a long time ago they stopped mining it. They have actually played with the idea of changing their name to a less off putting one. The city of Asbest doesn’t feel like there is any need to do that! Because in Asbest the mining is still going strong. The asbestos there is mined by Uralasbest. Their asbestos comes from a big hole in the Ural Mountains of Russia. A lot of people from Asbest have asbestos as their livelihood. They don’t want the production to stop, as that would hurt them a lot. No one questions the wisdom of mining the asbestos nearby by using explosive charges, putting asbestos fibers all over the air. Yet they have renamed their it to chrysotile to take away the associations with lung cancer and other diseases. As you know from our article EPA and Asbestos the EPA was planning to loosen the rules on asbestos rather than tighten them. This made Uralasbest really excited. The chairman of the board of Uralasbest, Vladimir V. Kochelayev said “Trump is on our side.” On their facebook page they put a picture of their asbestos stamped with a seal that had President Trump’s face and said “Approved by Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States”. They had never actually stamped the asbestos, it was just a public relations stunt. And the public relations expert who dreamed it up, Pavel Kashpurov, said it was successful. They were extremely excited when they heard this news because it would mean more business if the fears of cancer and other diseases were forgotten of. Because now that both Brazil and Canada, who were the main countries supplying America with asbestos, no longer produce it, Russia sees that they could be producing the asbestos for America. In the past Uralasbest was declining how much asbestos they mined each year, but last year they increased to 315,000 tons, and 80% of it was sold internationally! The type of asbestos that is in Asbest and mined by Uralasbest is white. There is some scientific basis that white asbestos is less dangerous that black and blue asbestos, yet what you are about to read is an exaggeration, skimming over the fact that chrystile is a carcinogen, just like all the other types of asbestos. Mr. Kochelayev says that chrystile not only sounds less scary, it really is. “I can not say it is totally safe, but it can be used in controlled situations without danger”. That is the case for everything. But the naming of this white asbestos a chrystoline has helped this economic backbone of Asbest to not break as fast. The town’s former mayor, Andrei Kholzakov, said that as Trump is familiar with construction he probably knows ‘the truth’ of asbestos more than most Americans. In 2012 Trump did tweet that if asbestos hadn’t been replaced with “junk that doesn’t work” that in the September 2001 attacks the World Trade Center wouldn’t of burnt down. And, at least in 1997, did not think that asbestos being bad was determined by science but “by the mob”. Asbest still has enough chrysotile in the ground to continue mining for at least another century. The only thing that matters is whether or not their customers will continue buying their asbestos or buy in to the fears of diseases. It may seem that if no one else, at least the doctors in Asbest are against the asbestos. Surprisingly, they aren’t! In Russia mesothelioma is not marked as a separate type of cancer so the statistics are not as scary as here. Some movements are being made, or at least are being claimed to be made, for the safety of asbestos for the workers in the asbestos factory. Uralasbest says that they have put better air filters in their huge processing plant as well as forced their workers to wear better masks. Yet maybe we can’t trust them because while boasting of this change they don’t allow anyone to check it out, saying their factory is a ‘restricted zone’. One man, Viktor Stepanov, is not at all worried about the danger of asbestos. He is now 88 years old and has worked in the asbestos factory for decades. He says that his good health and old age are proof that asbestos isn’t all that dangerous. He explained that he drank the free bottles of milk given out daily by the factory to fend away disease. He says that “Everything is harmful to some degree. One-hundred percent guarantees that something is not harmful do not exist.” This is the view of many people. Yet Asbestos is in Russia, almost on the other side of the world. Even if not really quite geographically, it sure seems like it. So why does it matter to us? Russia supplies almost all the asbestos that is on the world market. So if asbestos mining was stopped in Russia, asbestos would be used a whole lot less for the simple reason that there would be a lot less of it available. So the likelihood of it ending up in your home would also be a lot smaller. Also, it’s just interesting. But for now maybe all you are worried about is having asbestos. If you think you’ve got asbestos in your home or building call us at 773-345-7074.
The United States stopped mining asbestos in 2002. Yet asbestos is still on the world market. It must come from somewhere, but where?
No matter how much health advocates bother them about it, Russia is still a huge producer of asbestos. In Russia there is a city called Asbest, which is russian for asbestos. It is not unheard of to name a city that produces asbestos Asbestos. Canada has a city named Asbestos but a long time ago they stopped mining it. They have actually played with the idea of changing their name to a less off putting one. The city of Asbest doesn’t feel like there is any need to do that! Because in Asbest the mining is still going strong. The asbestos there is mined by Uralasbest. Their asbestos comes from a big hole in the Ural Mountains of Russia. A lot of people from Asbest have asbestos as their livelihood. They don’t want the production to stop, as that would hurt them a lot. No one questions the wisdom of mining the asbestos nearby by using explosive charges, putting asbestos fibers all over the air. Yet they have renamed their it to chrysotile to take away the associations with lung cancer and other diseases. As you know from our article EPA and Asbestos the EPA was planning to loosen the rules on asbestos rather than tighten them. This made Uralasbest really excited. The chairman of the board of Uralasbest, Vladimir V. Kochelayev said “Trump is on our side.” On their facebook page they put a picture of their asbestos stamped with a seal that had President Trump’s face and said “Approved by Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States”. They had never actually stamped the asbestos, it was just a public relations stunt. And the public relations expert who dreamed it up, Pavel Kashpurov, said it was successful. They were extremely excited when they heard this news because it would mean more business if the fears of cancer and other diseases were forgotten of. Because now that both Brazil and Canada, who were the main countries supplying America with asbestos, no longer produce it, Russia sees that they could be producing the asbestos for America. In the past Uralasbest was declining how much asbestos they mined each year, but last year they increased to 315,000 tons, and 80% of it was sold internationally! The type of asbestos that is in Asbest and mined by Uralasbest is white. There is some scientific basis that white asbestos is less dangerous that black and blue asbestos, yet what you are about to read is an exaggeration, skimming over the fact that chrystile is a carcinogen, just like all the other types of asbestos. Mr. Kochelayev says that chrystile not only sounds less scary, it really is. “I can not say it is totally safe, but it can be used in controlled situations without danger”. That is the case for everything. But the naming of this white asbestos a chrystoline has helped this economic backbone of Asbest to not break as fast. The town’s former mayor, Andrei Kholzakov, said that as Trump is familiar with construction he probably knows ‘the truth’ of asbestos more than most Americans. In 2012 Trump did tweet that if asbestos hadn’t been replaced with “junk that doesn’t work” that in the September 2001 attacks the World Trade Center wouldn’t of burnt down. And, at least in 1997, did not think that asbestos being bad was determined by science but “by the mob”. Asbest still has enough chrysotile in the ground to continue mining for at least another century. The only thing that matters is whether or not their customers will continue buying their asbestos or buy in to the fears of diseases. It may seem that if no one else, at least the doctors in Asbest are against the asbestos. Surprisingly, they aren’t! In Russia mesothelioma is not marked as a separate type of cancer so the statistics are not as scary as here. Some movements are being made, or at least are being claimed to be made, for the safety of asbestos for the workers in the asbestos factory. Uralasbest says that they have put better air filters in their huge processing plant as well as forced their workers to wear better masks. Yet maybe we can’t trust them because while boasting of this change they don’t allow anyone to check it out, saying their factory is a ‘restricted zone’. One man, Viktor Stepanov, is not at all worried about the danger of asbestos. He is now 88 years old and has worked in the asbestos factory for decades. He says that his good health and old age are proof that asbestos isn’t all that dangerous. He explained that he drank the free bottles of milk given out daily by the factory to fend away disease. He says that “Everything is harmful to some degree. One-hundred percent guarantees that something is not harmful do not exist.” This is the view of many people. Yet Asbestos is in Russia, almost on the other side of the world. Even if not really quite geographically, it sure seems like it. So why does it matter to us? Russia supplies almost all the asbestos that is on the world market. So if asbestos mining was stopped in Russia, asbestos would be used a whole lot less for the simple reason that there would be a lot less of it available. So the likelihood of it ending up in your home would also be a lot smaller. Also, it’s just interesting. But for now maybe all you are worried about is having asbestos. If you think you’ve got asbestos in your home or building call us at 773-345-7074.
