Crocidolite

Crocidolite, called blue asbestos because of its bluish color, is another form of asbestos to humans.

South Africa was the world’s greatest source of crocidolite asbestos, with the richest mining areas located in the Asbestos Mountains in Griqualand West, Cape Colony.  A doctor visiting Kuruman, South Africa, a nearby area to Cape Colony, described the terrain around the asbestos settlements as looking blue for miles, with blue dust clouds forming a haze over the countryside.  Despite the fact that mining ceased toward the end of the 1970s, today bright blue strips still line the roadsides of Transvaal, South Africa, where milling waste was dumped near villages.

Characteristics of crocidolite asbestos

Fairly flexible, but not as flexible as chrysotile, crocidolite also forms long, straight fine fibers in bundles that look similar to amosite. Crocidolite comprised only four percent of asbestos usage in the United States.

Products made from crocidolite

In the early 1950s, before manufacturers owned up to the inherent dangers of asbestos, the P. Lorillard Tobacco Company used crocidolite in tobacco filters for Kent brand cigarettes.  More than 13 billion crocidolite filter cigarettes were sold within the four-year period when crocidolite was combined with other materials in the filters.  As a result, countless people directly inhaled asbestos.

However, this use was short-lived, and the main use of crocidolite asbestos was for cement products.