Asbestos Contamination of Abatement Equipment Surfaces

Abstract

Uncontrolled, friable asbestos material on the surfaces of asbestos abatement equipment and bagged asbestos waste is commonplace in the industry and a source of unnecessary exposure to unprotected workers and other persons. Equipment, including respirators, ladders, and hoses, is often neither decontaminated properly nor sealed in airtight bags at the completion of work. Proper maintenance is often found lacking in the shower, in the clean room, and in the load-out decontamination units. This article describes a study of the levels of asbestos fiber contamination of asbestos abatement equipment found both at the work sites when the work crews initially arrive and throughout the course of the projects.

Via surface (strip tape) sampling methods, 10 of 13 (10/13 or 77%) work crews arriving for work were found to have friable asbestos contamination on the surfaces of their equipment and/or did not maintain their equipment or load-out properly during the abatement project. A total of 244 samples were collected, with 35 percent of the total yielding positive results for the presence of asbestos. Importantly, some conscientious abatement crews were identified arriving at the job site with equipment exhibiting ‘no asbestos detected’ (NAD). Crews with equipment documented as originally being contaminated were retested after thorough cleaning and usually found to be ‘clean’ (results of NAD).

Procedures are described to standardize data collected by the industrial hygienist, and it is recommended that these procedures be incorporated into job specifications. Asbestos abatement crews should expect equipment prework sampling and understand the repercussions of the results. This information is recommended for the continual evaluation of the work crew performance throughout an asbestos abatement project as well as part of the qualification evaluation of the asbestos abatement contractors.