Preschoolers Face-To-Face With Asbestos

January 3, 2023

Originally published in EWG’s Enviroblog by Alex Formuzis

My four-year-old son Jack likes to play on the floor. On one recent visit to his pre-school class, I played the tyrannosaurus rex and got “slayed” — pinned to the floor — by Jack and his pals James, George, Raymond, the other James, Peter, Julia and Amelia.

I thought about that day when I read that Trinity Episcopal Church‘s School of Early Learning, just a few miles away in Arlington, had been shuttered indefinitely because dust from the floor tiles had tested positive for asbestos.

The online news site, Arlnow.com, reported that “volunteers were cleaning the preschool when they ripped up flooring, releasing asbestos dust into the air.”

Asbestos is a known human carcinogen. There is no safe level of exposure to it. Inhaling even a minuscule amount can mean a long and likely fatal battle with asbestos-related disease.

Most Americans probably think exposure to asbestos happens on the job – in  construction, cutting up asbestos-laden composites, or auto repair, where mechanics handle asbestos brake pads.

Read the full story here.