Safety in the Home

Old Freezers and Fridges: Before discarding appliances like chest freezers etc you should break the locking mechanism. This will prevent a child locking himself in.  Every year several kids suffocate in fridges, dishwashers and freezers.

Asbestos: Educate yourself about the dangers of Asbestos. In the UK it is a bigger killer than Road Deaths. Despite its use in the construction industry being halted in 1995, deaths caused by the substance are still increasing and will do so for some years to come. Carpenters, plumbers electricians and builders are the main victims but there are still millions of tons in older properties and this can quite easily be disturbed when doing DIY, or you have the builders in.

Once diagnosed with the cancer caused by the microscopic asbestos fibres - mesothelioma, life expectancy is around a year - TBM

In the US there is a similar problem but we seem not to have fully wakened up to the problem and will lose large numbers of people if tradesman are not properly alerted the dangers. Several countries are still mining and exporting the material so we can expect mesotheliomas to be killing people for some time to come - P Garvansky Jan 2009