Amosite (brown asbestos) and

 Crocidolite (blue asbestos) have straight needle like fibres
which naturally split along their long axis producing very fine fibres

 Chrysotile (white asbestos) has mostly softer curlier fibres, which make them useful for weaving and has been used to make cloth for centuries.

Asbestos fibres can remain unchanged in the body for years.

The uses of Asbestos

The word asbestos was first used by the Romans in the first century AD, but by that stage the material had already been in use for about 2000 years.
Archaeological evidence from Finland has shown that a type of asbestos was used to strengthen clay pots over 4000 years ago.
In the first century AD the Roman Writer Plutarch, described a cloth woven from asbestos fibres that could be cleansed by immersion in fire.
When the Venetian Explorer Marco Polo returned from the East 1200 years later he too described a fire suit he had seen.

It was not until the late nineteenth Century that asbestos began to be used on a large scale in the manufacture of many different items.
From the 1880's it was used increasingly in the textile industry to produce incombustible products, also gland packing and other linings for machinery.

The different types of asbestos had some remarkable properties - with their resistance to heat, friction and chemical decomposition combined with their fibrous nature;
and as the industrial age - particularly the development of the automobile - gathered momentum early this century.
Asbestos began to be used in an increasing range of applications.

World War One saw asbestos being used as thermal insulation in Naval vessels and by the 1920's the substance was firmly established as a vital ingredient in the manufacture of friction clutches and brake linings.
Coinciding with this increased use was the discovery of large reserves of white and blue asbestos in Russia, Canada and South Africa. Reserves of both were also found in Australia.

Asbestos became popular as the reinforcing material in Cement products including wall claddings roofing material, pipes and guttering and other building materials.
At the same time it was used more and more in its raw state as an insulation material in buildings, around boilers and as a fire retardant around steel work and as noise insulation.

The post war period was the heyday of asbestos use in New Zealand and around the world.
Each of the three main types of asbestos were sprayed and spread in what seemed to be an ever increasing range of applications throughout industry,
as part of machinery components, and, to a lesser extent in homes.

A United Kingdom report in the late 1970's estimated that about 3000 manufactured products contained asbestos in one form or another.
The same report said there were over 21,000 people in the United Kingdom alone employed in the manufacturing of products which contained some degree of asbestos, and about the same number employed in processes which were subject to the asbestos regulations of the time.