asbestos exhaust lagging

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jamesdestin

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The previous owner of my boat removed the inboard engine but left various pipes and fittings. I want to get rid of them, not least so I can clean out all the smelly oily **** also left behind. The exhaust has been left and is lagged with thick grey-white fibrous rope-like stuff. Have to suspect it's asbestos based. Am I doomed to finding and paying a professional person to take it out? Or can I do it myself with a decent face mask? If I can do it myself, is my local authority likely to be willing to accept it for disposal? There must be loads of older boats out there with this problem?
 
REmove it your self but wear a full disposable boiler suit with hood and a proper face mask with filters, minimise dust when working and place all waste in heavy poly bags - not ordinary bin bags. If possible cut the exhaust and remove it with the lagging intact (less dust).

As for disposal, I would not condone taking it off shore and dropping it overboard nor going to your local dump and just dumping it amongst the other household waste and keeping quiet about it. Better you cause a panic and give the drama queens something to bleat about and charge you a small fortune to get rid off your small quantity of waste - should not take you more than a day to fill out the forms etc.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
Re: Good answer, and so politically correct

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif NM.
 
Stictly the answer is no you can't do it yourself. The ordinary face masks are not suitable for asbestos protection as far as I know. (You should use a positve pressure respirator and wear a coverall and have proper changing facilities just like they do for entering radioactive environments.) There area should be cordoned off and maybe also sealed off and under negative pressure. The waste must be properly bagged up and labelled. There there may be a mountain of paper work to authorise the disposal of the waste at a registered site. You may be required to monitor the asbestos fibre concentration in the vicinity unless the job is very quick and have the area certified as "clean" when the work is complete.

The greyness of your lagging suggests that it might even be the dreaded blue asbestos (aka Crocidolite). It was commonly used for asbestos rope I believe. Put a little a small glass jar and add some water. If it goes blue(ish) it's crocidolite. That's not an official test and its not infallable and absence of the blue colour does not prove it's not.

If you have access to a low power microscope and you examine the fibres you will find that asbstos fibres can be broken down into finer fibres whereas things like glass cannot. Again that's not official but is based on experience. With experience the different forms of asbstos can also be recognised. To be certain needs special polarised light microscopy techniques. (Or X-ray diffraction eqipment!)


If you are tempted to remove it yourself soak it well to prevent any dust and wash away any residues very thoroughly. How you would then dispose of the waste I'm not sure.
 
What is technically or even legally correct and what is possible are two different things. With a little care and common sense it is physically possible for you to do your little cleanup without any "drama" or "ill effects". Disposal is another matter but I am sure you can figure out how to get rid of what cannot be more than a shopping bag full of rubbish.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
As a heating engineer we come across asbestos often, with rope, flues, gasket and boards, our procedure would be -
Use disposable overalls and dusk mask, wet down the area and the asbestos thoroughly. avoid dust at all cost, as previously mentioned remove exhaust without unwrapping rope good idea may be to wrap wet newspaper around the lot and remove in one piece. put waste including overalls and mask in heavy polythene bag and seal then put the lot in another bag and seal so that it is double wrapped.Our council will provide the bags free usually marked up (asbestos waste) and will accept it if you take it to the tip like this. But check with your local council before hand.
(Ps we do have a firm collect all our rubish but we are commercial )
 
There you go... and no "drama" - just good common sense and sensible precautions - like the wet newspaper idea to help keep the dust down or at least contained.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
Im with Cliff on this one , FFS just damp it down in the bag and ditch at sea . We are talking of an exhaust pipe here not a ships entire engine room.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Im with Cliff on this one , FFS just damp it down in the bag and ditch at sea . We are talking of an exhaust pipe here not a ships entire engine room.

[/ QUOTE ]Now, now, I said I would not condone such practices - we really need to give the drama queens something to make a fuss about - I mean it's the law - isn't it? and we don't want to break any laws even if some of them are a load of .... dreamed up by some tree hugger or another in Brussels.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
Ignorance of some laws is bliss !! Opps it slipped overboard officer. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
 
As my great grand daddy said - "there is no crime unless you get caught!" ie just don't get caught.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
 
Re: asbestos exhaust lagging - thanks

Thanks for the advice guys. I think it will come out fairly easily in one piece and the idea of wrapping it with wet newspaper first seems sound. When all is said and done, it's been vibrating and bouncing around in the bottom of the boat shedding fibres and dust for decades!
 
Amazing isnt it. Just a few years ago they were marketing asbestos as a wonder material, despite already knowing that there was a hazard. Now the hazard has been blown out of all proportions by the jobsworths and the 'licenced disposal' contractors. gee what a gravy train.

Seriously, here is a tip for dealing with any dusty problems including asbestos:

Mix PVA adhesive (white wood glue or builders 'Feb-bond' etc) with about six parts water, and spray it with a garden sprayer or trigger can all over the problem area, taking care to soak the offending item completely. This not only wets everything down, but as it dries all the dust becomes embedded in slightly gooie plastic that you can just scrape up and pop in a bag.

Tip 2: PVA can be washed off tools and spray equipment much easier with 5% vinegar in hot water.

Tip 3: If your elected government can throw radioactive waste, depleted uranium munitions, leftover nazi mustard gas and all sorts of other crap in the sea, then there is NO problem with Tony_M deep sixing his poxy old zorst that probably isnt even lagged with asbestos anyway.
 
Despite all the hilarious answsers to this question, having been on a health and safety course recently, the laws are punitive. If you want it done cheaply, do it yourself, and don't tell anyone of your concerns it might be asbestos.

The professionals will have to do it the legal way, and that will be expensive and time consuming for all

Just make sure the contamintants aren't disposed off in a plastic sack in the side of a field, and not dumped in the sea in a plastic bag!!!
 
I agree fully with that Brendan.

Whatever one thinks of the risk of asbestos (and I personally think the risk from casual exposure to some types/encapsulations is greatly over rated) the risk of the very high punitive costs is big (like in some countries mega millions from civil claims if a company). A company cannot normally afford to take that risk unless quite cavalier (especially as the customer will be paying /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif), an individual will probably get away with UNLESS, of course, they have posted here that they are going to try to get away with it /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif.

John
 
I do agree that the asbestos regulations appear to be a Jobsworth's Charter, and often seem to go into extraordinary detail.
On the other hand, over the last few years several friends & colleagues have died from the effects of this material.It's not a pleasant way to go, honestly.
Better to err on the side of caution, even if it appears to be paranoid.
 
Regarding the final disposal of asbestos, I had to get rid of some a few years back. There was some asbestos rope (used for installing fire grates), a few roofing tiles and about one square merte of board that had been blocking off a chimney. When I took it to the local dump, wrapped up in a sealed blue plastic fertilizer bag, the guy in charge said "take it next door to the incinerator." This I did whrer I expected them to put it aside for disposal in a licenced site but it was taken from me and thrown into the hopper that fed the incinerator! I don't know whether they would still do that mind.
 
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