Ridgewood NJ , According to the Ridgewood News ,”Talks on the issue began early last month, after similar requests from Ridgewood Schools Superintendent Dan Fishbein and Audrey Meyers, the hospital president.
“The purpose of the … ban would be to allow students to walk to and from school without having to deal with secondhand smoke,” Mayor Paul Aronsohn said.
“That is both very reasonable and very responsible. As a mayor and a parent, I fully support the proposed ban on smoking near our schools,” the mayor said.
Aronsohn added that “clearly, we should do everything possible to make the environment in and around our schools and health care facilities smoke-free.”- See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/239206961_Ridgewood_revives_bid_to_limit_smoking.html#sthash.MihGop6A.dpuf
Asbestos
Chrysotile asbestos, also known as white asbestos, is the most common type of asbestos in industrial applications. When looked at under the microscope, chrysotile asbestos fibers wrap around themselves as a spiral, that is why this form of asbestos has also been called serpentine or curly asbestos.
Amphibole asbestos fibers are straight and needle-like. There are several types of amphibole fibers, including amosite (brown asbestos), crocidolite (blue asbestos), tremolite, actinolite, and anthophyllite.
Both types of asbestos cause cancer. Amphibole asbestos does seem to be more potent in causing a rare type of cancer called mesothelioma.
Asbestos fibers are strong, resistant to heat and to many chemicals, and do not conduct electricity. As a result, asbestos has been used as an insulating material since ancient times. Since the industrial revolution, asbestos has been used to insulate factories, schools, homes, and ships, and to make automobile brake and clutch parts, roofing shingles, ceiling and floor tiles, cement, textiles, and hundreds of other products.
During the first half of the 1900s, growing evidence showed that breathing in asbestos caused scarring of the lungs. In the early 1900s, exposure to asbestos dust in the workplace was not controlled. Beginning in England in the 1930s, steps were taken to protect workers in the asbestos industry by installing ventilation and exhaust systems. However, in the huge shipbuilding effort during World War II, large numbers of workers were exposed to high levels of asbestos.
As asbestos-related cancers became better recognized in the second half of the 20th century, measures were taken to reduce exposure, including establishing exposure standards and laws that banned the use of asbestos in construction materials. There has been a dramatic decrease in importing and using asbestos since the mid-1970s, and alternative insulating materials have been developed. As a result, asbestos exposure has dropped dramatically in the United States. However, it is still used in some products, and it is still possible to be exposed to asbestos in older buildings, water pipes, and other settings. Asbestos has been banned in the European Union for several years, although the ban did not require removal of asbestos that was already in place. Still, heavy asbestos use continues in certain countries.
People are exposed to asbestos mainly by inhaling fibers in the air they breathe. This may occur during mining and processing asbestos, making asbestos-containing products, or installing asbestos insulation. It may also occur when older buildings are demolished or renovated, or when older asbestos-containing materials begin to break down. In any of these situations, asbestos fibers tend to create a dust composed of tiny particles that can float in the air.
In addition, asbestos fibers can be swallowed. This may happen when people consume contaminated food or liquids (such as water that flows through asbestos cement pipes). It may also occur when people cough up asbestos they have inhaled, and then swallow their saliva.
Many people are exposed to very low levels of naturally occurring asbestos in outdoor air as a result of erosion of asbestos-bearing rocks. The potential for such exposure is higher in areas where rocks have higher asbestos content. In some areas, asbestos may be detected in the water supply as well as in the air. It may be released into the water through several sources, such as erosion or natural deposits, corrosion from asbestos cement pipes, and the breakdown of roofing materials containing asbestos that are then transported into sewers.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/intheworkplace/asbestos
Diesel Exhaust
Diesel is a type of fuel derived from crude oil. Large engines, including those used in many trucks, buses, trains, construction and farm equipment, generators, ships, and in some cars, run on diesel fuel.
The exhaust from diesel engines is made up of 2 main parts: gases and soot. Each of these, in turn, is made up of many different substances.
The gas portion of diesel exhaust is mostly carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur oxides, and hydrocarbons, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
The soot (particulate) portion of diesel exhaust is made up of particles such as carbon, organic materials (including PAHs), and traces of metallic compounds.
Both the gases and the soot of diesel exhaust contain PAHs.
Exposure to diesel exhaust is widespread in the modern world. Exhaust from diesel engines brings a complex mixture of soot and gases to roadways, cities, farms, and other places. Health concerns about diesel exhaust relate not only to cancer, but also to other health problems such as lung and heart diseases.
How are people exposed to diesel exhaust?
People are exposed to diesel exhaust mainly by breathing in the soot and gases, which then enter the lungs. The amount of diesel exhaust people are exposed to varies greatly. Measuring these exposures is not easy because diesel exhaust is chemically complex and many parts of it are also found in a lot of other sources. This has been, and remains, a major challenge when trying to study the health effects of diesel exhaust.
People may be exposed to diesel exhaust at work, around the home, or while traveling.
Where you live and play
People can also be exposed to diesel exhaust in areas where they live and play, although this is typically at lower levels than in the workplace. Exposures are highest where diesel traffic is heaviest, such as along major highways and in cities.
Does diesel exhaust cause cancer?
Researchers use 2 main types of studies to try to determine if a substance or exposure causes cancer. (A substance that causes cancer or helps cancer grow is called a carcinogen.)
In studies done in the lab, animals are exposed to a substance (often in very large doses) to see if it causes tumors or other health problems. Researchers may also expose normal cells in a lab dish to the substance to see if it causes the types of changes that are seen in cancer cells. But it’s not always clear if the results from these types of studies will apply to humans.
Another type of study looks at cancer rates in different groups of people. Such a study might compare the cancer rate in a group exposed to a substance versus either the cancer rate in a group not exposed to it, or the cancer rate in the general population. But studies in people can sometimes be hard to interpret, because there may be other factors affecting the results that are hard to account for.
In most cases neither type of study provides definitive evidence on its own, so researchers usually look at both lab-based and human studies if they are available.
Studying a substance like diesel exhaust can be even more complicated because it is actually a mixture of many chemicals. Therefore, researchers have to look at studies of the parts of diesel exhaust, such as soot and PAHs, as well as studies of diesel exhaust itself.
On top of this, changes in diesel technology in recent decades have resulted in lower levels of soot (particles) in diesel exhaust. Studying diesel exhaust exposure from decades ago may not be the same as studying current exposures.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/pollution/diesel-exhaust
The BOE has indicated that they have no opinion on this is issue. Or perhaps 1-2 people on the Board have no opinion on the issue.
How can you have no opinion on a 10 year construction site next door to a school with 300 students and faculty and a field used by hundreds more Ridgewood students and adults, but be concerned about the occasional cigarette smoker on the sidewalk adjacent to the school, Dr. Fishbein? I’m not saying that it’s okay to smoke outside our schools, but it’s also NOT ok to subject our schoolchildren to that amount of construction dust and fumes for so many years. Just looking for consistency Dr. Fishbein.