Asbestos News

The Environmental Protection Agency announced recently that the owners of an abandoned lampshade factory in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, must halt demolition work and take appropriate measures to ensure that no more asbestos is released into the air, the Scranton Times Tribune reports.

The site has been the subject of a number of recent violations, including the improper removal of the hazardous material and the storage of harmful waste materials, the news source said.

"We're going after all the materials," said Mark Carmon, a state Department of Environmental Protection spokesman. "They're [EPA] after all the asbestos in the building."

The owner of the site is also required to submit a work plan to the federal agency and put up asbestos warning signs throughout the building, the EPA order said.

Old Forge zoning officer Paul Papi has called the former factory a problematic site for a number of years and said it continues to violate the borough's ordinance on dangerous buildings.

Exposure to asbestos has been proven to cause a number of deadly diseases including asbestosis, lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer that occurs in the tissues surrounding many of the body's internal organs.