Historical March 1976 reporting on asbestos and renovation. Preserved as an archive; the period safety instructions are not current guidance.
People’s Clinic is passing along a bit of information from the Environmental Science Laboratory of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York: spackling compounds, taping and joint compounds can be hazardous to your health! In a neighborhood filled with do-it-yourselfers, with Spring coming on, the following seems timely advice.
Spackling, joint and taping compounds all contain asbestos, and a do-ityourselfer can easily be exposed to moreasbestos than is regarded the maximum in industrial plants — the problem is inhaling the dust.
The advice:
1. Wear fitted face masks which filter the air you breathe. (These are available in paint and hardware stores, as disposables very like hospital-issue.)
2. Avoid raising dust; premixed compounds are safer than the powders you mix yourself.
3. Try smoothing the material with a wet cloth as you apply it, rather than sanding it smooth after it dries.
We hope to see the neighborhood rehabbers wearing, in addition to their regulation costume of hard hat, steel toed shoes, paint-bespattered jeans, and rubber gloves — a neat and tidy face mask! By their raiment shall ye know them!
Originally published in The Paper, March 1976.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1976_03.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
