Asbestos sheets in garden

[Deleted User]

Just been told by a workman from next door that this is most probably asbestos. It's at the end of the garden at the side of the neighbour's summerhouse.

I've been excavating right next to it in recent weeks.  And have definitely handled with my bare hands a few pieces which had already broken off.

How much harm might I have done just being next to it / handling offcuts of it?

I live in London and I've found that the hazardous waste service will come collect it if it's bagged up. 

Is it best to hire people to come do that?  One bit looks jammed between the breeze block wall and the soil.

Also should I avoid sitting anywhere near it till it's gone?

My mind has been elsewhere and I just wasn't thinking about any potential risks other than Covid!

MX5huggy

You’ll be fine and what is done is done. Breathing In loose fibre is the thing to be avoided, outside, not smashing it up or drilling it you won’t of released fibres to breath in. Look to see if the local council accepts small quantities at the tip (some do some don’t). You can then follow the HSE task sheet for bagging it and take it there. 

Davesnave

Before bagging, douse it in water from a hose, but really what you have done is very minor and unlikely to have had any effect on you. I live on an old farm site and constantly come across asbestos pieces on my land which I collect, bag and eventually dispose of.

Neither of us has been anywhere close to the amount of broken sheets I recently spotted on the site of a derelict cinema on Google Earth......just behind streets of private houses. It's everywhere!

GDB2222

Mesothelioma only requires a single strand of asbestos, inhaled and lodged in the lungs, to set it off. But the good news is that it takes  25 years to progress to cancer, so if you are getting on a bit, like me, you will die of something else first.

 The chances of inhaling that fibre are, apparently, rather small, especially from asbestos cement sheeting where the asbestos is all bound together. 

Bear in mind that lots of people worked every day with asbestos, milling the stuff and bagging it up. End users then poured the stuff out of the bags and mixed it up with water. They were many of them very heavily exposed, on a daily basis, yet only some of them became ill - 20% according to this reference 
https://www.asbestos.com/asbestos/statistics-facts/

[Deleted User]

Thanks, all, that's very helpful!   

Now I'll just have to hope there wasn't any Covid on the asbestos I picked up!  (Memories of last spring when I was spraying hand sanitizer on country styles....).