Eternit: the story of a promise of eternity

The name was a promise. "Eternit", from the Latin aeternus, "eternal", was meant to stand for a building material that does not rot, does not burn, does not pass away. A hundred years later the promise has been fulfilled in a way no one intended: the substance in the material, asbestos, really is practically imperishable, and its consequences reach into the present.

The invention

In Schöndorf near Vöcklabruck, the "Erste österreichisch-ungarische Asbestwarenfabrik" (First Austro-Hungarian Asbestos-Goods Factory) of the entrepreneur Ludwig Hatschek (1856 to 1914) began production in 1893. At first it made asbestos goods; but Hatschek was looking for a way to manufacture durable, frost-resistant slabs from asbestos fibres and a binder by machine. In 1900 the breakthrough came with Portland cement as the hydraulic binder: finely opened asbestos fibres, mixed with cement and water and formed on a converted cardboard machine into thin, strong slabs. The original recipe consisted of around 90 percent cement and 10 percent asbestos (Stiftung Eternit-Werke Schweiz).

On 15 June 1901 Hatschek was granted Austrian patent No. 5970, a "process for manufacturing artificial stone slabs from fibrous materials and hydraulic binders". He had the brand name "Eternit" protected as a word mark in 1903. The idea was compelling: a material as formable as cardboard, as strong as stone, non-combustible, weather-resistant and cheap.

The triumph

The material spread quickly across borders. As early as 1903 the first foreign asbestos-cement factory was built in Poissy near Paris, and another the same year in Nyergesújfalu in Hungary; soon sites followed in Bohemia and Moravia, and through licences the process spread to numerous countries in Europe, to Russia and overseas. Asbestos cement became the material of the modern age: corrugated sheets on roofs and facades, window sills, flower troughs, and above all pipes; entire water-supply networks were built from asbestos cement. Anyone who needed a roof or a pipe in the twentieth century often reached for Eternit, without even perceiving the brand name as a brand.

The price

The catch lay in those 10 percent. Asbestos in hardened fibre cement is firmly bound: as long as the sheet stays intact, it releases almost no fibres. It becomes dangerous as soon as the material is worked or destroyed, when it is sawn, drilled, sanded, broken, and over decades through weathering. Then exactly those microscopic fibres come loose that can trigger asbestosis and lung cancer, and pleural mesothelioma, a tumour of the pleura that arises predominantly from asbestos (more on the medicine: → Asbestos and health).

In Austria, between 1950 and 1990, around 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes of asbestos were processed each year, predominantly chrysotile (Arbeitsinspektion). Asbestos was found in a wide range of products, from insulation materials and brake linings to the roofing slabs and pipes made of Eternit. Because the illnesses only appear decades after exposure (Arbeitsinspektion), the intensive use of the post-war decades reaches into the present in its consequences.

The reckoning

Austria sharply restricted asbestos with the Asbestos Ordinance of 1990; asbestos-containing products could only be placed on the market for a limited time, asbestos-cement building products for structural construction at the latest until 31 December 1993 (BGBl. No. 324/1990). An EU-wide asbestos ban has applied since 2005. That the late consequences are not settled is shown by the support landscape: for people with occupational asbestos exposure, the BBRZ runs counselling centres in six cities (gesundearbeit.at). One of them is in Vöcklabruck, where it all began with Hatschek's works.

The Hatschek process has survived: fibre cement boards are still made today, only the asbestos has been replaced by asbestos-free fibres. The Eternit brand, which had outlasted the asbestos scandal for decades, is now receding: the Vöcklabruck company has traded as Swisspearl since 2023, and the Eternit name survives only on individual products such as the corrugated sheets (meinbezirk.at).

Why the story is not over

Eternit is the story of industrially added asbestos, of a deliberately manufactured material. It explains why almost every building from before 1990 may still contain asbestos-bearing substance. A large part of these sheets, facades and pipes is still in place today; intact, the firmly bound material releases almost no fibres, but when worked, broken or renovated it becomes dangerous. Asbestos-containing waste counts as hazardous waste in Austria; one therefore does not tear such substance out oneself, but leaves inspection, removal and disposal to qualified firms (more on this: → Recognising asbestos).

But there is also the other path by which asbestos reaches buildings and roads: naturally occurring asbestos in rock, used as gravel and grit. That is the story currently unfolding in Burgenland (→ Asbestos in Burgenland). Two different paths, asbestos both times, the same disease. The promise of eternity from 1903 was kept, only not in the way it was meant.

Sources

• Deutsche Biographie, "Hatschek, Ludwig": deutsche-biographie.de (factory in Schöndorf near Vöcklabruck, start of production 1893, company name, Portland-cement process 1900, patent 5970/1901, first foreign works Poissy and Nyergesújfalu 1903)
• Austrian Biographical Lexicon, "Hatschek, Ludwig (1856 to 1914)": biographien.ac.at (Schöndorf near Vöcklabruck; first foreign asbestos-cement factory 1903 in France)
• OÖ Nachrichten, "Hatscheks Patent für Eternit": nachrichten.at (patent No. 5970 of 15 June 1901; word mark "Eternit" 1903, from the Latin aeternus)
• Stiftung Eternit-Werke Schweiz, "Über Asbest": eternitstiftung.ch (original mixture: 90 percent cement, 10 percent asbestos fibres)
• Arbeitsinspektion, "Asbest: Kein Thema der Vergangenheit": arbeitsinspektion.gv.at (30,000 to 40,000 tonnes annually 1950 to 1990, predominantly chrysotile; latency several decades)
• Asbestos Ordinance 1990, BGBl. No. 324/1990: ris.bka.gv.at (placing asbestos-cement products for structural construction on the market prohibited from 1 January 1994)
• Gesunde Arbeit (ÖGB/AK), "Asbeststaub: Es geht um Ihre Gesundheit": gesundearbeit.at (BBRZ counselling centres in Vienna, Linz, Vöcklabruck, Kapfenberg, Klagenfurt and Innsbruck)
• meinbezirk.at (district of Vöcklabruck), "Eternit wird zu Swisspearl": meinbezirk.at (renaming 23 March 2023; Eternit name retained on products such as corrugated sheets)
• Images: Eternit advertisement 1905, Austrian National Library (ANNO), public domain; Eternit advertisement Bozner Zeitung, 24 December 1910, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.