When you say “World War II gas masks were manufactured using asbestos”, are you referring to the face mask itself, the detachable filter that screws on to the side of the mask or both?

I have a WW2 gas mask identical to the one shown at this URL
http://www.fu-kit.com/product.php/415/genuine-british-wwii-gas-mask-respirator-bag

I am curious as to whether the “block of asbestos” you refer to is located only in the green cylinder that hangs off the the left side or whether is is also contained in the two air vents (the front one and the one on the left the the filter screws into).

I’ve tried the mask on a couple of times (only for about 20 seconds) but never with the green cylinder attached (which is actually still sealed) so I’m curious as to whether I’ve been exposed to asbestos or not.

Please note though that in post-war/”modern” filters (say made after the 1950s or so) instead of asbestor glassfibre or filter paper is used instead to catch particulates. There’s a lot of speculation on the net whether soviet NBC filters contain asbestos; youtube is full of teenage boys pondering the issue… (sic). What the user might inhale though is, as said before, activated charcoal. Usually a thin particle filter is in place to keep the charcoal in place, with age this barrier may fail. I cannot in any instance recommend people to open the filter and use the charcoal for say water filtration (there’s medical or food grade activated charcoal for this) as the charcoal in modern mask filters is laced with various metal salts and other chemicals in order to have the charcoal react to and bind certain hazardous agents that would otherwise pass.

For example, in the Nordic countries, still-sealed A2B2E2K2 filters (informally ABEK2, modern combination filters according the European standard that filter out even some agents encountered in an industrial accident such as ammonia) are classified as hazardous waste (even those that have not been used) due to the chemicals that the charcoal has been prepared with. Thus one should not tinker with the contents of old filters, for really old ones due to asbestos and for newer ones for the possibility of “spiked” charcoal.

Inhalation of charcoal dust may be a source of an irritant to people that have an underlying respiratory illnesses such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and could exacerbate symptoms.

ADVICE: I would recommend that one researches the safety of inhaling charcoal in old gas masks. I am assuming however – that relatively short use of the masks pose very little health risks to the user with no respiratory conditions.

Thank you,

Admin.