Today, we want to talk about planes, trains and automobiles, and shipping. Asbestos was widely used in all of these industries, because they were lightweight, fire resistant, chemical resistant, all of the things that manufacturers wanted and they were dirt cheap, let’s start from the top and work down.
A lot of asbestos was used in aviation. A lot of the early Apollo missions, space travel, all that kind of stuff. Even the space shuttle had asbestos components about it. So anywhere that they had to have something that was lightweight, fire resistant, chemical resistant, heat resistant, asbestos was used. So you can imagine in the engine components, shielding, aircrafts have a lot of stuff packed in really tight. Asbestos fabrics were used to shield things. Asbestos paints were used to coat things, and that’s how it got into the space program, and into airplanes and all that kind of stuff.
Let’s talk about cars and trucks and cranes and trains and all that kind of stuff. Just about anything that had an internal combustion engine, back in the day before asbestos was banned, they would have asbestos gaskets and some sort of asbestos heat shielding products, whether it was woven fabric around wiring or asbestos paint on firewalls. It could be just about found anywhere in these vehicles.
There’s been a lot of talk about vintage cars. You look on the internet at the moment and there’s a resurgence of vintage cars. It’s amazing how many vintage cars are getting sold in Australia. Now some of those cars, may still have asbestos in them. So, you’ve just got to be wary of buying this barn find cars, and these single owners, ones these things that have been stored away and haven’t been used, because they probably haven’t had those gaskets replaced and all the original asbestos components are still attached to these cars.
I mean, a thing that people don’t realize is if you are bringing in American muscle cars or European luxury cars that are vintage, they must come through customs in Australia, because it’s illegal to import asbestos in any quantity in Australia. So those cars have to come through customs and they have to be inspected. And there was a rally. Maserati had their hundredth anniversary or something and they’d bought 16 cars over, 16 vintage Maserati’s, and they were going to do this thing around Australia and drive, and they got stopped by Australian Border Patrol. Those cars weren’t allowed on Australian roads, and they got sent back because they said, “Well, we can take the asbestos out of them.” obviously they’re priceless Maserati’s. Some of them are worth a million dollars. They weren’t going to let anyone pull them apart to get the asbestos out of them, because asbestos is only banned or has restrictions in about 50 countries around the world it’s still common, everywhere else.
A lot of equipment that come in back in the day, and still now, imports are a big deal for asbestos. Things like trains that have come in from overseas. It looks like China and India are still big users of asbestos. I don’t know how they forget that these products have asbestos in them. They’ve found it in a lot of things, like we said before, gaskets, heat shielding, spray on coatings, in cars, the trains that Queensland ordered. They’ve come in just about anything.
Asbestos in shipping asbestos was huge back in shipping because as you can imagine, it was lightweight, it was cheap, and fire, chemical, and electrical resistant. It was one of the industries that used asbestos heavily was the naval industry and shipping. So, there are pictures of naval warships, Americans, have a lot of stuff on this, where they have a picture of a warship and the areas that contain asbestos. Now it would be easier to say the areas that don’t contain asbestos, because it’s less than 5% in some of these ships. you’ve got to remember; ships are made of steel and they’re in oceans. And sometimes they’re going to the coldest part of the world. So, some of these ships will have asbestos linings on them because the two things you don’t want inside a ship, are water and fire. And asbestos is not affected by water or fire.
Asbestos was great at insulating things and it was great to keep out water from sections of the boat, and fire, because they’d have gaskets around all the doors that separate sections of a ship. A lot of ships are built in separate compartments and those compartments can be shut down and all those things, those doors all had seals on them. A lot of those seals had to be asbestos in case there was a fire, so the fire couldn’t burn through the seal, and water resistant so that they couldn’t dissolve in water. So there are massive amounts. If you ever get a chance to go on an old Navy ship, especially in Brisbane, we had the Diamentina. Down in Sydney, there is asbestos all through those things. It’s just everywhere and a hell of a lot of asbestos diseases come from people that were in the Navy.
So that’s it. I’m not sure how much aware people are aware of that. But just goes to show, asbestos is lurking anywhere as it was used in over 3000 products, and everyday items that people used and relied on were no different. So that’s it for me today. Jason, from Coastal Asbestos. If you like this video, there’s plenty more on our YouTube channel. Thank you.