Asbestos Exposure in Glass, Aluminum, and Cement Plant Workers

If you worked at a glass plant, an aluminum smelter, a cement plant, or a waste incinerator — or if someone in your family did — and a mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis, or other asbestos diagnosis has now come in, this page is the place to start. The same dust reached the spouses and children who washed the work clothes, and the other workers who shared the hot, enclosed furnace houses where the work was done.

A glass, aluminum, or cement plant worker breathed asbestos from two directions at once. His own work released it straight into his breathing zone through tasks like opening bags of dry refractory mix, pouring and mixing castable, and breaking spent linings out of the furnaces during rebuilds. Industrial hygiene testing of routine refractory castable mixing measured 125 to 239 fibers per cubic centimeter in the worker's breathing zone, thousands of times today's federal limit. And the air around him was already thick with it, because the block and pipe insulation on the furnace shells, ducts, and steam lines was being cut and torn off the same equipment; that insulation work has been measured at 7 to 50 f/cc. He didn't have to lay a single brick or wrap a single line to breathe it.

You don't need to remember which company's refractory or insulation you used, and you don't need old job records or time cards in hand. The bankruptcy trusts that pay many of these claims are built to compensate exactly this kind of work: for mesothelioma, even brief asbestos exposure on a worksite that used it is typically enough to qualify, so you don't have to prove a heavy dose. If you can say "I ran the potlines for thirty years" or "my husband worked the glass furnaces," we have a starting point.

In a glass plant, smelter, or kiln, the asbestos in the air came from the block and pipe insulation on the furnaces and lines and from the refractory work that rebuilt them, work that filled the hot, enclosed plant floor. The measured fiber levels form those activities are documented on our site's product pages: see asbestos pipe and block insulation and asbestos refractory products.

Why glass, aluminum, and cement plant workers were exposed to asbestos

High-temperature plant work put workers in daily contact with asbestos for a simple structural reason: the furnaces, smelters, kilns, and incinerators ran at extreme heat, and for most of the twentieth century asbestos was the material the country used to contain that heat and seal it in. The refractory that lined the furnaces, the block and pipe insulation on the shells and ducts, the cement troweled onto the fittings, and the gaskets on every door and port were all asbestos by design. A furnace or potline worker encountered it regularly because he worked inside equipment built out of it.

The exposure came from the ordinary, repeated motions of the work, not from anything unusual:

• Mixing and pouring refractory. Opening bags of dry refractory mix and pouring, gunning, and mixing castable threw fiber straight into the air the worker was breathing. Routine bag-opening and mixing has been measured at 125 to 239 f/cc in the breathing zone.
• Tearing out spent furnace linings. Furnace crown rebuilds, potline relines, and kiln repairs meant breaking out hardened, heat-degraded refractory and insulation, and tearing out old material releases far more fiber than installing it new.
• Cutting and stripping insulation. The block and pipe insulation on the furnace shells, ducts, vessels, and steam lines was cut into and torn off constantly, by the worker himself during rebuilds and by the insulation crews on the same equipment a few feet away. Cutting common high-temperature insulation has been measured at 7 to 50 f/cc.
• Replacing furnace-door gaskets and seals. The asbestos gaskets and rope seals on furnace doors, ports, and access panels were scraped out and replaced as routine maintenance, releasing fiber each time.

Two things multiplied the exposure. The work happened in the worst possible places for dust: enclosed furnace houses, potrooms, kiln buildings, and casting floors, where the heat was intense, the ventilation was poor, and the fiber hung in the air and was rebreathed rather than carried away. And it happened over and over for an entire working life. A career furnace or potline worker mixed refractory, broke out linings, and opened up insulation thousands of times across thirty or forty years, and tearing out old, friable (crumbly and dusty), degraded material released far more fiber than handling it new.

Through all of it, the men doing the work were given no warning and no protection. They worked bare-handed in the dust, blew it off equipment with compressed air, and went home in dusty clothes to their families, while the companies that made the products and ran the plants knew what the dust was doing.

The asbestos products a plant worker handled, and why they add up to more than one claim

Over a career, a high-temperature plant worker handled several different asbestos products, each made by a different set of companies, and that combination is what shapes the claim. Understanding the products is how we identify who's responsible and which claims you can bring.

Refractory brick and castable. The lining of the furnaces, smelters, and kilns, mixed and poured wet and broken out hard during every rebuild. The makers behind these products are largely covered by bankruptcy trusts, including names like A.P. Green and Harbison-Walker, two companies with asbestos trusts to cover injured workers. See how asbestos refractory brick and castable caused exposure.

Block and pipe insulation, and insulating cement. The block on the furnace shells and vessels, the covering on the ducts and steam lines, and the cement troweled onto fittings were among the heaviest asbestos products in the building, and the worker cut into them during every reline. These trace back to the largest names in the industry, including Johns-Manville and Owens-Corning, most of which now pay through trusts. See how asbestos pipe and block insulation caused exposure, and how asbestos insulating cement caused exposure.

Furnace-door gaskets and seals. Every door, port, and access panel was sealed against heat with asbestos gaskets and rope, made by several manufacturers and scraped out and replaced as routine maintenance. See how asbestos gaskets and packing caused exposure.

This is why a plant worker's case is rarely a single claim. Because the work touched refractory, insulation, cement, and gaskets from many different manufacturers, the typical recovery runs against several bankruptcy trusts at once, such as the A.P. Green, Harbison-Walker, and North American Refractories trusts for the lining and the Johns-Manville and Owens-Corning trusts for the insulation, plus a lawsuit against the glass, aluminum, or cement company that owned the plant. You don't need to remember which company made the castable you mixed in 1974 or the block you stripped in 1981. Give us the work history, and we trace each product back to its maker, and each maker to its trust or its place in a lawsuit.

Where you worked, and why the setting still matters

A plant worker carried the exposure with him through the work itself, but where he worked still matters to the case, because it decides which company can be held responsible as the premises defendant and whether any federal benefits come into play on top of the trust and lawsuit claims.

The same high-temperature refractory and insulation work was done in a few related settings, and if a career touched any of them, those industry pages may help:

• Iron and steel mills. The heaviest refractory users of all; furnace-lining, tear-out, and insulation work there matched the work in any smelter or kiln. Learn about steel mill asbestos exposure.
• Power plants and utilities. Boilers, turbines, and steam lines wrapped in the same block and pipe insulation. Learn about utility and power generation asbestos exposure.
• Industrial and commercial construction. The crews that built and relined the furnaces, kilns, and plant structures worked the same dust. Learn about construction industry asbestos exposure.

If your loved one worked at a federal facility, such as a government-run plant or incinerator, tell us, because that setting can add a benefit channel that runs in parallel with everything else.

What the asbestos trade press said about glass, aluminum, and cement plants

The asbestos industry's own trade journal, Asbestos, and Johns-Manville's employee magazine wrote now and then about glass works, aluminum plants, and cement mills. They were writing to sell products, not to warn anyone. Today their notes help families picture what was on the furnaces and in the hands of the people who worked there.

In the glass plants. In 1922 the magazine said glass makers wrapped asbestos tape around "the tines of forks which they use for taking bottles, etc. out of their ovens," and used it "to reinforce the paddles used in stirring the molten glass" (Asbestos, Jan. 1922). A 1934 article on light-bulb machines described new bulbs dropping from the annealer onto "a broad asbestos belt," with inspectors at the end of the cooling tunnel wearing asbestos gloves. It added that glass plant workers protected themselves "by wearing asbestos aprons, gloves, and other forms of protecting clothing" (Asbestos, Feb. 1934). During the Second World War, when the government cut asbestos textiles out of non-essential goods, conveyor belts "for glass industry" were exempted (Asbestos, Jan. 1943).

The lehrs, the long ovens where glass is cooled slowly, were a market for insulation. In 1929 two J-M sales supervisors spent a day at the Libbey-Owens Sheet Glass plant in Charleston, W. Va., "on a survey of insulation for Lehr machines" (J-M Circle, Aug. 1929). In 1930 J-M sold Superex, Banroc blankets and Grade "B" Transite for new lehrs at a glass plant in Washington, Pa. The lehr builder had placed sixty such orders with J-M, "every one of which is J-M insulated" (J-M Circle, July–Aug. 1930). A 1966 British survey said Turnall panels and Marinite were used for "insulating ovens, kilns, dryers, lehrs," and asbestos millboard for "paddles in glass mills" (Asbestos, Sept. 1966). As late as 1980 Frenzelit was still selling lehr roll discs to glass makers, "including neokem asbestos-free types" (Asbestos, Oct. 1980).

In the aluminum plants. In 1966 Alcoa patented an insulating refractory "to be used in contact with molten aluminum" made of "about 50% by weight of asbestos fiber" (Asbestos, Feb. 1967). In 1968 Johns-Manville said its Molten Metal Marinite, a board "consisting of asbestos fiber," was used in several U.S. foundries casting aluminum and zinc sheet, for the "launders, tap-out box, distributor and nozzles which convey, feed and cast the molten metal" (Asbestos, July 1968).

In the cement plants. In 1931 the magazine described a conveyor belt with an asbestos cloth surface for "hot smalls in cement works" and rotary kilns. One belt carried "174,720 tons of hot clinker in six months" (Asbestos, Aug. 1931). In 1942, at the Victorville, Calif., cement plant, the heat from the kiln ends was so bad that men on the platform above "wore wooden shoes to keep from blistering their feet." The company's own crews fixed it with corrugated asbestos-cement sheets. Each man went in "clad completely in asbestos" with "a fan trained on him" to lay a sheet over the clinker cooler. A second man followed with the insulation (Asbestos, July 1942, continued).

If your plant isn't named here, that doesn't mean it was free of asbestos. These are only the places the trade press happened to write about.

Sources of compensation for glass, aluminum, and cement plant workers

A plant worker's recovery usually comes from more than one place, and the different channels run in parallel without canceling one another out. We file across all of them that apply.

• Asbestos bankruptcy trusts. The companies that made the refractory, insulation, and gaskets he handled and later went bankrupt set aside money in trusts to pay the people they harmed. These are paper claims that don't require a lawsuit or a courtroom, and a single career often supports filings against several trusts at once. How asbestos trust claims work.
• Lawsuits against solvent manufacturers. Some makers of refractory, insulation, and furnace gaskets remain in business and can be sued directly for making and selling products they knew were dangerous, even though the largest refractory names now pay through trusts. How product liability lawsuits work.
• Premises liability against the plant owners. The glass companies, aluminum producers, cement makers, and incinerator operators that ran the plants can be held responsible for the conditions they allowed, separate from the companies that made the products. For a high-temperature plant worker, this is often the central lawsuit. How premises liability claims work.
• Federal and disability benefits. These depend on where and how the work was done, and they're paid in addition to the trust and lawsuit recovery. Civilian work at a federal facility can support FECA (the Federal Employees' Compensation Act) benefits, and Social Security disability is available to anyone whose illness stops them from working. How asbestos disability and benefit claims work.

When a plant worker's case goes to court, the companies raise the same handful of defenses they raise in most asbestos cases, and none of them is new to us. The short version is that the arguments describe a cleaner, smaller version of the job than the one your loved one actually did, and the evidence answers them. The detail is below for anyone who wants it.

All of this applies only to the lawsuit side of a case. The trust claims are a paper process: no opposing lawyer raises defenses, no one is deposed, and no one goes to court.