When Was Asbestos Banned?

The horrors of asbestos are well known and still with us to this day. Given this, the ban on the material would seem to have been a natural move. So, when was asbestos banned?

Asbestos was a wonder material for manufacturers. It was easy to get because you could simply mine it out of the ground. Even better, the profit margins on it were very, very healthy, the kind of margins you would fight to protect and, oh, did the manufacturers fight!

The asbestos legal wars began for all purposes in the very early 1970s. The manufacturers argued a host of different things ranging from asbestos was not toxic to it didn’t cause health problems for people living around it. Of course, this all proved to be untrue and the public and political pressure slowly grew to a point where things could no longer be denied. 

On July 12, 1989, a federal ban against the use of asbestos in products went into force. The cancer causing material was finally banned…or was it? Well, the manufacturers did not give up. They filed lawsuit after lawsuit challenging the ban on a host of fronts. To the shock of many, an appellate court decided to partially overturn the ban in 1991. There has since been a lack of political will necessary to revisit the issue and fix the problems with the ban pointed out by the court. 

So, where do things stand now? Well, the ban extends to any “new uses” of asbestos in the country. This simply means it cannot be used in new products or products that it was not previously used in. For instance, it can’t be used in your iPad. As for older products, it can be used in them without restriction. The only products that are excluded are certain housing products such as siding and roofing felt. 

You are probably thinking this isn’t much of a ban after all. You are correct. The court gutted the ban for the most part. Still asbestos manufacturing has dropped dramatically given all the negative press. The consumer has done what the asbestos ban of 1989 could not.