Two mounds of asbestos tailings. The top photo was taken next to the mill from yesterday's entry. The other one, a few kilomteters away, closer to the town of Thetford Mines. Because the mills can't fully extract the asbestos from the ore during processing, a lot of this waste still contains fibres. The mines insist that because these hills will gradually form a hardened crust, the risk of the material underneath blowing around the community is kept to a minimum. Of course, significant levels of asbestos fibres are still said to enter the atmosphere during the during the refining process.
While the type of asbestos (Chrysotile) mined here isn't thought to be as harmful as the types found in Africa or Australia, there are higher than average cases of asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma in the area. This isn't all that surprising, given that the workers in the mines aren't required to wear any sort of respiratory protection, and in some sections of the town, residential areas are butted right next up against these piles of waste. It's a sharp contrast to the near alarmist reaction that occurs whenever the material shows up anywhere else in the rest of North America. It's definitely a strange place, and I hope to be able to take more photos here over the next few months to try and learn a lot more about it.
