PSA for the Anxious: Inhaling Thousands of Asbestos Fibers Every Day Is Already Part of Life
This is a great sub with great advice from asbestos professionals, but it seems to be a common theme here for people unfamiliar with asbestos to post their anxieties about it. I was the same way. I was very afraid of just the existence of asbestos in my home until I learned more about how unbelievably ubiquitous it is and how common it is to live with it.
Asbestos was used in nearly every construction material besides wood and steel from roughly the 1930s through the 1980s, and much of that material is still around today.
There are roughly ~100 asbestos fibers in every cubic meter of ambient city air, and the average person inhales around 20 cubic meters of air per day. That means you already inhale roughly ~2,000 asbestos fibers per day simply living in a city. Less in rural environments.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp61-c1-b.pdf
That doesn’t mean asbestos is harmless, and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t test materials or hire proper abatement contractors when necessary.
What it does mean is that if you come here nervous because you discovered an intact asbestos-containing material in your home, or had a brief surprise exposure, you should know that asbestos exposure is already a normal part of everyday life and that incidental exposures are often far less catastrophic than anxiety makes them feel.
Hope this helps calm somebody down a bit.