Quote Originally Posted by Maciamo
According to Wikipedia, asbestos production was prohibited since 1978 in the US and the last houses using it were uilti in 1986, almost 20 years ago.
Acc. to my information the US still hasn't a real asbestos ban. Perhaps they banned only particular usage.


Interestingly, the French-version of Wikipedia on the matter says that Germany banned asbestos in the late 1980's after the Scandinavian countries.
I looked it up as well, & I found at least 4 dates for prohibition in Germany: 1989/90/93/95, 1993 being the date of a chrysotile ban (Belgium was actually later than Germany on chrysotile). Now I found a page which has a nice chronology on asbestos prohibition:
International Ban Asbestos Secretariat
The 1st ban:
1983 Iceland introduces ban (with exceptions) on all types of asbestos (updated in 1996)

other interesting dates:

1993 Germany introduces ban (with minor exemptions) on chrysotile, amosite and crocidolite having been banned previously.

1995 Japan Bans crocidolite and amosite

1996 France introduces ban (with exceptions) on chrysotile

1998 Belgium introduces ban (with exceptions) on chrysotile

2005 Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal and Slovakia to prohibit the new use of chrysotile, other forms of asbestos having been banned previously, under EU deadline


I suppose, since there are different forms of asbestos & many ways to use it, it's no wonder that there is a bit confusion as to the exact dates of prohibition.