Asbestos in sand.

[Rocketpants50]

A friends sister very sadly died recently from ingesting at some point in her life asbestos. They have no idea how this happened though said it could have been a very small amount ingested whilst at school as a child.

Knowing how dangerous it is, I am really shocked by 1) the amount of play sand that seems to be sold in this country from big retailers which have found to have asbestos in - this has been used in homes and childcare settings.

2) the lack of outrage by this - is this a huge ticking time bomb?

3) the fact they are just saying double bag it and throw it in general waste.

It took a long time for Hobbycraft to recall products once they were informed by a parent after seeing similar products banned in Australia in November. They intially just withdrew it from sale. There are now reports of further products containing sand that have been recalled across multiple retailers. Why are these products still for sale and not been tested ?

Surely there should be some advice about retaining evidence to prove this should the worst happen? I know my friends sister was encouraged to think about where this might have happened to her?

I just think this is shocking that it has taken them this long to recall all these products or allow this to happen in the first place.

The most important thing here is that asbestos is not dangerous if ingested. To be dangerous it needs to be inhaled and go into your lungs. So swallowing sand even if it does contain asbestos doesn't cause issues.

And asbestos fibres will only be inhaled if released from the sand during mechanical processing.

The difficulty with the current sand recalls is around what different nations, particularly China classify as 'not containing asbestos',

Asbestos was such a widely used substance that we do all come into contact with it without knowing which makes tracing any illness to a specific exposure is very difficult and the timescale between exposure and illness is normally about 40 years.

Yes this is an issue and yes we should be following the guidance given but in terms of risk it is the same as many other risk we are exposed to all day such as diesel fumes, carcinogens in food etc.