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Asbestos claims are made by hundreds of workers, many of them retired, every year in the UK. However, there is another industrial disease causing similar health problems, which is not so well known: silicosis.
Silicosis is part of the same pneumoconiosis family as asbestosis. Both are lung problems cause by inhaling dust. Where they differ the most is the types of dust inhaled.
Asbestosis is caused by asbestos fibres, which cause scarring of the lung tissue, and silicosis is cause by the inhalation of silica dust, from mining, quarrying, stone cutting, sand blasting, boiler scaling, the manufacture of glass and ceramics, and fluid filters, which also results in scarring of the lung tissue.
Silicosis is wider spread in trades which involve a huge disruption of rock-beds, where silica is often found but many other industries also use varying types of silica during manufacturing processes, and so silicosis does not solely affect mining, quarrying and stone cutting tradespeople.
There are three common forms of silica dust in industry ‐ quartz, tridymite and cristobalite.
Quatrz
This is a naturally occurring mineral which can be found in many different colours and forms in crystals. As well as being well known in the gem trade, it is used in glass manufacture to sand-blast products, grind glass and cut soft stones. It is also present in soaps and is very important in the computer industry, which uses quartz to make silicon semiconductors
Tridymite
This is also a naturally occurring mineral which forms in crystals. It tends to be colourless or white in colour. Its uses in industry are in the making of ceramics and other similar trades. It is also useful to chemists and mineralogists, who, when they find it in another rock, use it to asses the temperature of the rock at the time it was crystallised. It is due to its particular properties and reactions to certain temperatures that tridymite can be utilised in this way.
Cristobalite
This mineral can be white, light yellow, light grey, light brown or blue-grey, and, similarly to quartz and tridymite, occurs in crystals. Rock scientists can also use this mineral to work out the temperature of certain rocks when they were formed, but in industry, cristobalite is used in paints, the manufacture of ceramics and jewellery.
Symptoms of silicosis
If a worker is frequently exposed to large amounts of silica, then symptoms of silicosis can sometimes present themselves within a year, but more often, symptoms take 10 to 15 years or more to develop, similar to asbestosis-related illnesses.
In minor cases, symptoms include breathlessness and coughing. More serious cases can result in inflamed lungs and fluid in the lungs, leading to breathing difficulties and subsequently low blood-oxygen levels.
Protective equipment should be provided by the employer to decrease the risk of the employee inhaling or otherwise being exposed to hazardous dust.
Making a silicosis or asbestos claim
If you would like to receive compensation for your pain, suffering and loss of earnings, resulting from having contracted silicosis in your place of work, then you might be able to claim with help from our expert personal injury solicitors.
By contacting us, you might be able to receive 100% compensation, because we don't take a cut of your settlement money, and our services won't cost you anything.
Phone us on 0800 10 757 95, chat over the internet using live help, or take a minute to fill in our short online claim form to see if you could make a silicosis or asbestos claim today.
