Dead Horse Bay - quantity vs quality

[Jimmy Langford]

I'm not concerned about the wet asbestos pieces, what I'm not so sure about is all the dried-out pieces in the intertidal zone. And I have a very distinct memory of the bags of finds that we brought back from the beach containing at least a couple chunks of what I now realize was probably asbestos sheeting. Now that I think about it I also remember being a kid lying on the top bunk bed in our 70s house and kicking at the crumbly popcorn ceiling with my feet. I wonder how much asbestos was in that.
And yeah it's pretty incredible how long the companies got away with suppressing the knowledge that asbestos and lead were harmful. To me the most incredible part of the history of asbestos is that in the early 1950s, after the link between cigarettes and cancer first became widely known in the US, a lot of smokers switched to filtered Kent cigarettes because of the perceived health benefits - except that the filters were made of crocidolite, an unusual type of asbestos so much deadlier than the standard chrysotile that it's treated more like radioactive waste than like typical asbestos. The town in Australia where they mined it was evacuated and demolished by the government, and houses found to be insulated with it are bought by the government and bulldozed rather than remediated. Since asbestos and cigarette smoke in combination are more carcinogenic than the sum of each in isolation, it wouldn't surprise me if the original Kent cigarettes are the most toxic product ever sold.
Canada was still producing asbestos until just a few years ago actually. We'd banned it for almost all purposes domestically decades ago, but still mined it to sell to developing countries until the Parti Quebecois got elected and permanently shut down the Quebec mines back in 2012 (the previous provincial government had planned to lend money to reopen them after a temporary closure). Up until then the feds had strongly supported it too, with the prime minister infamously defending the asbestos industry in Parliament while having all the asbestos removed from the building over safety concerns.

Meanwhile in Russia:

 

[CanadianBottles]

Meanwhile in Russia:

Wow, apart from the architecture Asbest looks almost identical to Val des Sources, Quebec, which just renamed itself last year after deciding that being named Asbestos, Quebec wasn't a very good strategy for attracting investment anymore.

 

[Jimmy Langford]

Wow, apart from the architecture Asbest looks almost identical to Val des Sources, Quebec, which just renamed itself last year after deciding that being named Asbestos, Quebec wasn't a very good strategy for attracting investment anymore.

Canada partakes in a little buffoonery.

 

[digger dun]

I used to walk that beach at least monthly when I lived in Brooklyn. I've found some amazing stuff there.

 

[Hogtown Hunter]

The background is beautiful.
I guess the foreground in pic is what killed the horse.
Is that in New York?

 

[Jstorm]

Ingestion of asbestos is not harmful. Inhalation is when it becomes a problem. So, in a sense, asbestos in the ocean or wet shores isn’t really a problem since it cannot become airborne. Lead is definitely a problem though, ingestion & inhalation can both cause lead to enter the bloodstream. Although highly don’t suggest you go lick a old building with deteriorating paint, from my research, lead is mainly a problem for children 6 years and younger. The outrageous thing is, one or both of the materials (I can’t remember) were already found to be dangerous in the 1890s. Yet it would be some 90 more years until they were banned from consumer products ! Asbestos was used in all kinds of things from insulation, siding, clothes, to even fake snow. In the snowstorm scene in the Wizard Of The Oz, pure asbestos was used for the fake snow. Many other movies from the olden days used asbestos as snow too. Well for lead, a additive in most paints in the 20th century. Used in houses, toys, children’s books, etc... Asbestos can cause lung cancer, and lead can cause learning disabilities in children.

Here are some disturbing pictures.

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I think the story of lead and asbestos is really fascinating.​

Learn something every day. That's my all time favorite movie. Cool!

 

[Jimmy Langford]

The background is beautiful.
I guess the foreground in pic is what killed the horse.
Is that in New York?

No, there was a factory in the 1800s that killed horses for meat. If I can remember right, they were disabled horses. It is called dead horse bay since the dead carcasses were dumped there. Occasionally, you will find the remnants of the long dead horses on the bay.

 

[Cano]

I live in Brooklyn at the moment and walk the beach almost every weekend. I love it, and the regulars are a joy. Dont think I’ve found a bottle older then the 20s. Most stuff sits between 40s-60s. lots of fun odds and ends, my favorite being this doorknob. Glass stoppers and marbles too.