Asbestos is something a lot of people have heard about before. They may even know that it is a fibrous material that comes in six different forms. Even if they do know all of this knowledge of asbestos, do they really know the nitty gritty details of what exactly asbestos is? Even though asbestos may seem unimportant to you, it’s actually a really common problem that a lot of American homeowners face. Asbestos can be absolutely debilitating to have in your home, so you need to stay educated on what exactly asbestos is before you start learning more and more about the dangerous mineral.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, asbestos is a fibrous material with six different forms. This is one of the key aspects of asbestos, the fact that it is fibrous. If it wasn’t fibrous, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about it. The fibrous nature of the asbestos is what makes it truly dangerous to have in a home. Non fibrous and non dangerous asbestos simply does not exist. As mentioned before, there are also six different types of asbestos. This is an important aspect to know, because not all forms of asbestos are as dangerous. There are certain types of asbestos that are more or less dangerous than the other types. Knowing which types are more dangerous is imperative to knowing asbestos at all. So, what are the six different types of asbestos? Well, before we discuss that, we need to discuss something else as well. Although there are in fact six different forms of asbestos, there are also two different categories. That means that there are multiple ways to classify asbestos. Each of the two categories contains a certain amount of subcategories. Those subcategories are what we consider the six different types of asbestos. 

So, let’s talk about the first category. The first category we will talk about actually only contains one subgroup. This is a little bit confusing because the category and subgroup have different names. No one is really sure why exactly scientists chose to create an entirely new category with a different name for the subcategory since the category and subcategory only contain one mineral. Therefore, the name of the subcategory should be irrelevant and we should just call the mineral by the name of the main category. However, this is not how the scientists decided to do it, so we will have to just work with what we have. The first category is Serpentine with the subcategory of Chrysotile. Chrysotile is the only type of Serpentine asbestos and is white. This Chrysotile asbestos also takes on a curly form, which is different from the other category we will soon begin to discuss. Since the Chrysotile form of asbestos takes on a white appearance, it is commonly referred to as “white asbestos”. Even though it also takes on a curly appearance, you will probably not hear anyone calling Chrysotile “curly asbestos”. 

The second category that we will discuss in the category of Amphibole asbestos. These types of asbestos are only a little bit different from the previous type of asbestos that we talked about. This type of asbestos is, in fact, not curly. Although Chrysotile/Serpentine asbestos takes on a curly form and nature, Amphibole asbestos do not. Amphibole asbestos actually takes on an entirely different form: straight. That’s right, Amphibole asbestos comes in the form of sharp, jagged, straight, shard like fibers. This is clearly very different from Serpentine asbestos. The types of Amphibole asbestos are: Crocidolite Amosite Anthophyllite Tremolite, and Actinolite.

Don’t let this menace ruin your life! Call now for asbestos removal, or asbestos testing, at (708) 367-3381.

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