After asbestos is removed it’s usually placed into sealed bags, taken to a designated landfill and buried. This type of disposal isn’t ideal because the bags can tear and the asbestos can eventually make its way into the water table or resurface over time. Plus, the asbestos is taking up valuable space in our landfills.
What many people don’t know is that asbestos can actually be recycled! Once removed, the asbestos containing material goes through a process where it is eventually turned into a harmless glass-like or ceramic product that has various construction uses. Check out this cool video that shows how ARI Global Technologies processes the asbestos from start to finish.
In the US there are old mines that have had piles of tailings, tainted with asbestos, sitting around for years. One such example is the Eden-Lowell mine in Vermont, with over 30 million tons of asbestos waste improperly disposed of around the mine in giant piles (https://www.asbestos.com/news/2017/09/21/vermont-asbestos-mine-cleanup/). What can be done with such a huge amount of hazardous waste?
The Vermont Asbestos Group plans to build a special plant to process the old, asbestos-laden mine tailings into chemicals that can be used in manufacturing (http://www.stowetoday.com/news_and_citizen/news/local_news/million-tons-of-asbestos-leftovers/article_f4f10bae-8366-11e7-8fb7-e363f8bc6585.html). This won’t be a quick, easy or cheap task, but it’ll be beneficial in at least two ways. It will rid the area of hazardous materials that pose the risk of contaminating the local air and water and it will create chemical byproducts that can be used to manufacture other items.
The best part is, asbestos recycling costs about the same as it does to send the asbestos to the landfill (http://infohouse.p2ric.org/ref/14/13297.htm). We are hopeful that with little difference in price and the added value of the recycled byproduct more and more people will recycle their asbestos. Eliminating it, instead of landfilling it.
Leave a Reply