The health ministry said Friday it plans to ban all use of asbestos by 2008 after recent announcements that hundreds of workers at various companies have died from diseases related to the toxic unburnable mineral.
The domestic use of asbestos is banned in principle, except in cases where there are no substitutes. Asbestos is therefore still used to make gaskets for machinery, insulating plates for switchboards, seals for chemical plants and industrial rope.
Japan's asbestos imports have fallen from their peak of 350,000 tons in 1974 to 8,000 tons last year, and are expected to fall further to just several dozen tons this year as the manufacturing and other industries develop substitutes.