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Armco Asbestos Surveys
Last Updated on 20th January 2025 by max2021
Surprisingly, asbestos wasn’t fully banned in the UK until November 1999.
Initially, back in 1985, the first asbestos prohibition laws were introduced and the UK banned the import and use of blue (crocidolite) and brown (amosite) asbestos.
It took some years later before the UK government finally banned the use and import of white chrysotile asbestos in 1999.
The ban on asbestos in the UK was implemented through The Asbestos (Prohibitions) (Amendment) Regulations 1999, which came into force on 24 November 1999. This legislation prohibited the use, import, and supply of asbestos-containing materials, effectively banning asbestos in the UK.
Asbestos was used extensively in house buildings before the UK banned its use in 1999.
It is estimated that as many as 50% of homes built pre-1999 may still contain asbestos.
Older homes may still contain Artex, which was still being made with white asbestos up until the mid-1980s.
Asbestos floor and ceiling tiles were also popular throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, so, likely, older properties that haven’t had any extensive renovation will still contain these materials in your floors or ceilings.
However, any new build homes constructed after 1999 should not contain any asbestos materials at all as by then the UK had banned all use of asbestos.
As well as asbestos having been finally banned in the UK in 1999, there were several other laws passed in the years to follow that regulated safety when working with and being exposed to asbestos.
For example, on the 21st of November 2002, the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations was introduced.
These new regulations meant that anyone working with any asbestos insulation products (eg removal, etc.) must possess an asbestos licence to safely carry out the work.
Additionally, these new asbestos-at-work regulations set maximum exposure limits and also enforced that any asbestos must be identified and managed properly.
On the 13th of November 2006, the 2002 regulations were replaced by the new Control of Asbestos Regulations Act which brought together all existing pieces of legislation and combined them into one single law prohibiting the use, supply and importation of all asbestos.
This new law was to prevent both the import and new uses of any asbestos-containing materials, such as the spraying of asbestos materials as a surface coating, using insulating or soundproofing materials made from asbestos, and use of asbestos cement, boards, panels or tiles covered in asbestos paint or plasters
But it also allowed for any existing asbestos materials manufactured before when asbestos was banned in the UK in 1999, such as tiles and insulation board, to remain intact if they were in good condition and left undisturbed.
Greater emphasis was placed on ensuring that anyone who may come into contact with asbestos materials as part of their work, including maintenance workers, was to be provided with suitable training.
Employers and self-employed workers were now required to protect against asbestos exposure, and as such, control limits were introduced which were put in place to protect workers from asbestos exposure, thus limiting the amount of asbestos they could be exposed to.
Any exposure to asbestos fibres now had to be below the airborne exposure limit of 0.1 fibres per cm³ within 4 hours or for short-term asbestos exposure (say over 10 minutes), it should not exceed 0.6 fibres per cm³.
This new regulation meant that contracted site workers would be able to assess the nature of a material and ascertain whether or not it was asbestos before commencing with any work on-site, enabling them to prepare accordingly.
This process would thereby help to eliminate the risk of uncontrolled damage to asbestos-containing materials and would prevent exposure to asbestos fibres if any work needed to be carried out that risked disturbing asbestos materials.
Any asbestos exposure had to be strictly controlled with workers wearing the correct respiratory protective equipment.
The 2006 Control of Asbestos regulations also enforced that almost all work involving the removal of asbestos insulation had to be carried out by a licensed contractor.
This means that anyone working with high-risk asbestos materials under the regulations must have a license to work with asbestos as issued by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
These regulations also stated that work must be performed following the approved code of practice (ACOP), and that any plans for asbestos removal had to be submitted to the HSE at least two weeks prior to any works commencing.
On the 6th of April 2012, the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 was introduced which superseded all previous regulations and updated them to be in line with the EU asbestos directive.
In truth, the changes made in the 2012 regulations are actually quite limited.
Only the rules for some types of non-licensed work with asbestos have changed which now have additional requirements, such as giving notification of work to the HSE and keeping medical and surveillance records.
Everything else literally remains the same as it was in the Control of asbestos regulations 2006.
Here in the UK, we have a long history with asbestos and it has been widely used as a common building material in residential, commercial and public buildings such as schools, hospitals, factories, and chemical and power plants.
Despite us now being fully aware of its dangers to our health and asbestos being banned in the UK, these dangers were originally ignored by the UK government for decades and we continued to use asbestos extensively in construction and manufacturing, in the UK, right up until the year 1999.
Scientists were warning of the dangers of asbestos as early as the 1920s and 1930s after having conducted studies that suggested the material as being the cause of serious respiratory illnesses in individuals exposed to asbestos fibres.
But despite these early scientific studies and warnings, we continued to use asbestos.
So much so that by the 1960s and through to the 1970s, the UK was importing a whopping 170,000 tonnes of asbestos.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that it suddenly became apparent that cases of mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases were rising across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
People were becoming ill and dying from having been exposed to asbestos many years earlier and that’s why the ban eventually came in for the UK.
It was at this point that the government started to take notice and realised that action needed to be taken in order to control the use of asbestos and possibly have it banned altogether in the UK.
Hospitals also realised they would need to provide treatment for people affected by exposure to asbestos, such as those with mesothelioma cancer.
This led to the first asbestos prohibition laws being introduced in 1985 when the UK banned the import and use of blue (crocidolite) and brown (amosite) asbestos.
So when was asbestos banned? In 1992, some forms of white asbestos (chrysotile) were also banned before all forms of asbestos were finally banned in the UK in the year 1999. Now, it is illegal to supply any material containing asbestos in the UK.
Duty holders and employers have a legal responsibility to manage asbestos in their properties, carrying out an asbestos survey in their buildings so as not to put employees at risk.
So make sure you contact our Armco office to arrange asbestos testing or an asbestos survey before it’s too late!
Whether you need an asbestos management survey or a refurbishment/ demolition survey, contact us at 0161 763 3727 or by visiting https://www.armco.org.uk/
Finally, for all your asbestos training needs call 0161 761 4424 or visit https://www.armcoasbestostraining.co.uk/to book an asbestos awareness training course.
Published Nov 06, 2019
