Canada Exporting asbestos to hazardous Indian factories

Canada’s CBC ran a special entilted “Canada’s Ugly Secret” on June 10 about an industrial area in India known as “The Golden Corridor,” where chrysotile asbestos, exported from Canada’s Black Mine, in Quebec, is being processed in factories.

Studies indicate that chrysotile asbestos poses the most hazard in industrial settings, where large quantities of it can be breathed, and for this reason asbestos products are no longer manufactured in Canada.

According to the CBC story though, Canada is the last country  in the developed world to still sell it, and is the second largest exporter in the world. And in the slums around the Golden Corridor, people are dying of asbestosis and other asbestos-related diseases. CBC’s cameras captured workers in the factories handling loose asbestos in dust-filled rooms, with no respirators or other protective equipment.

The asbestos is being sold by a Canadian company named Lab Chrysotile Inc., and, according to the report, the Canadian government has been heavily lobbied by groups such as the Chrysotile Insitute to keep asbestos export legal. –http://www.asbestoswatch.net