News Brief

JLC Warns of Arsenic in Plaster

Old plaster may contain arsenic

, warns an article in the July 2004 issue of the

Journal of Light Construction (JLC). According to Kevin Hansen, who recently investigated abandoned tannery sites in the Wilmington, Delaware region for Tetra Tech, Inc., the leather-making industry used to soak animal hides in a slurry of lime and arsenic to soften them and remove hair. The waste product was then sold for use in rat poison or as filler in plaster. “I can’t say that the presence of hair means that there is arsenic,” Hansen told

JLC. “But one has to wonder, where did that hair come from?” Industrial labs will measure arsenic levels in plaster samples for around $50 each, he says. The Tetra Tech report on tannery locations is online at www.tetratech-de.com/tanneries/.

Published September 1, 2004

(2004, September 1). JLC Warns of Arsenic in Plaster. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/newsbrief/jlc-warns-arsenic-plaster

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