[Issues related to long-term asbestos use and manufacture].

Extensive measures to ban mining, manufacture, use, and trade of asbestos and asbestos materials have been taken worldwide. In this century asbestos will continue to be an economic, industrial, health, social, and environmental issue. Five thousand products that are still in use have been inherited from a century of asbestos processing. In 1999, the EU member states decided to take steps that would eventually terminate the use of asbestos. At the same time, about 4000 t of asbestos had been imported to Croatia every year. EU member states started to enforce asbestos ban in 2005. This encouraged the Croatian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to issue a list of toxicants whose manufacture, trade, and use were banned, and which included asbestos and asbestos products. In 2007, several national acts came to force regulating protection of workers occupationally exposed to asbestos. Asbestos is ubiquitous in the environment. It has been released from construction materials during renovations, demolitions, maintenance, and other building activities. It is released by drilling, blowing, demolishing, loading, transport, and improper storage of asbestos materials. Asbestos was often used for insulation. It was favoured for its resistance to heat, fire, moisture, noise, electricity, friction, and fraying. Materials used for firefighting, insulation, protection from noise, and construction frequently contain one or more types of asbestos. Landfills present a particular problem, since asbestos materials can not be recognised macroscopically. Asbestos can be identified by standardised polarising microscopy. This raises the need for education, because human exposure should be kept as low as possible to prevent the development of asbestos-related diseases.