Asbestos is a fibrous variety of certain minerals, some of which occur naturally as an accessory to a wide variety of mineral resources. Although asbestos itself has been historically mined for various useful properties, the negative health effects of asbestos dust have greatly diminished it as a useful earth material, as many countries have banned the use of these fibrous minerals based on those health concerns. Resulting regulations of asbestos have focused primarily on intentionally mined material used in product manufacturing, such as building materials made with beneficiated asbestos and their derivative exposures, e.g., airborne asbestos in schools with asbestos-containing materials. The hazards of asbestos as unintended byproducts have not been as extensively considered, although this “contamination” has been repeatedly observed in common earth materials including talc, vermiculite, sand, and gravel. This study reveals such contamination of ornamental and dimension stone commonly referred to as “marble”. Asbestos types that can be associated with certain Indian marble reserves include asbestiform tremolite, actinolite, anthophyllite, and chrysotile asbestos. This case reveals such contamination in a marble reserve in Rajsamand, Rajasthan. At this location, marble dust in slurry is disposed at waste collection points, unfortunately including a location now open to the public that has become a tourist destination. Using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) in this study, dust from this location revealed abundant tremolite asbestos fibres in the disaggregated dust. This poses potential health risks to the workers, bystanders, and tourists that may be exposed to this recognized carcinogen, a known cause of mesothelioma, lung cancer, and other asbestos-related diseases.

Asbestos-related diseases are significant in India and have been seen to be on a rise across the world. This study aimed to determine whether the waste slurry from a marble waste slurry dump contains detectable asbestos fibers.

It has been reported in this study that the dust from a marble slurry dumping yard open to the public as a tourist location has been found to contain tremolite asbestos. This plausibly demonstrates that the marble industry poses an occupational and environmental hazard to the workers, local inhabitants around the mine, and the general public at a distance by exposing them to asbestos dust.

It is well recognized in the scientific and medical community that such exposure may lead to asbestos-related diseases, which can include lung cancer or mesothelioma of the pleura or the peritoneum.

This informs us that during the extraction process, or during transportation, refining, or any other process in and around these marble mines, the tremolite can be released into the environment, into the breathing zone of not only the workers but the bystanders or even tourists.

This is crucial, as there may not be general awareness about the presence of asbestos contamination in marble widely extracted in Rajasthan, and physicians, workers, or mine owners may never be aware of asbestos exposure from “marble” mines or milling units.