The history of asbestos in the UK dates back to the late 1870s when the use of the material started, mainly on ships, steam engines and in power generating plants. By early 1900s the dangers of asbestos started becoming known – yet it wasn’t until 1999 when all types of asbestos were banned in the UK. Today, asbestos is still widely used in the developing world.
To highlight the history of asbestos in the UK, we created a timeline as a backdrop to our Imperial Festival stand. We used the blog post ‘The Asbestos Story: a tale of public health and politics’ as the basis for the timeline. The blog is written by Professor Sir Anthony Newman Taylor who chairs the NCMR’s Scientific Advisory Board.
The two videos below were made using the graphic design materials of the timeline. Thank you to Derbyshire Asbestos Supprot Team who made these videos to mark Internatioal Workers' Memorial Day 2020.
