DSK are pleased to announce our collaboration with the one and only, Tony Rich.
Tony is a world class photographer of all types of asbestos and its many forms, as well as a dear friend.
We met in 2022 at an asbestos conference in Brussels – Asbestonomy where he displayed his gallery of amazing artworks, and have been captivated by his work ever since.
Six Minerals. One Name. Immeasurable Misery
What is asbestos?
The answer can largely depend on who’s asking.
To those from bygone eras, asbestos was prized as a legendary and magical substance. To corporate industrialists, it’s just another natural resource to commercialise and exploit. To geologists, it is a classification of unique naturally-occurring fibrous minerals. To scientists and technologists, it appears as thin microscopic crystalline fibers. To occupational hygienists and surveyors, it’s a persistent hazard concealed in an ever-growing list of materials and locations. To abatement workers and operatives, it means demanding and often underappreciated high-risk work conducted under strictly controlled conditions.
To doctors and healthcare professionals, asbestos represents one of history’s most notorious occupational and environmental carcinogens and an insidious agent of disease. To most people, it remains an unknown danger hidden within many of our everyday places where we live, work, learn, worship, play, and gather. And to its unwitting victims and their families, asbestos exposure represents something far more personal — unimaginable suffering and immeasurable misery which was all too often preventable.
Yet regardless of how it is viewed, every asbestos story begins with at least one of these same fibrous minerals.
Once celebrated as the “magic mineral” for its diverse physical properties, asbestos was incorporated into thousands of products and its uses were seemingly boundless, pervading into nearly every facet of modern-era civilization: from underground infrastructure to outer space, and practically everywhere in between. However, yesteryear’s dreamworld of asbestos wonder is today’s nightmarish toxic legacy.
For more than a century and a half, millions of tons of asbestos were mined, manufactured and installed across the globe, with most of it still remaining in our buildings, infrastructure, and countless products. Although asbestos fibers are microscopic in size, their impact has been beyond reckoning — causing incurable disease, unfathomable loss, and ongoing risks for future generations.
Asbestos fibers, when released into the air and inhaled, can become permanently lodged within the human body. Diseases linked to exposure can take decades to develop, silently progressing long after the original exposure has been forgotten. The result has been a global public health crisis of illness, disability, and death affecting workers, families, public and entire communities. Although many think of asbestos as a problem of the past, its presence remains very much a challenge we all face today and tomorrow. However, there is a path forward.
By understanding the origins of asbestos, where it may still be found and how exposures can be prevented, lives can be protected. The ill-fated story of asbestos may begin with a group of fibrous minerals, but the legacy they leave is profoundly human. The final chapter depends upon the choices we make today.
Awareness and diligent prevention remain our most effective remedy to save lives.
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