How Many Types of Asbestos Are There? Blue, Brown and White Explained

Blue, brown and white asbestos come up constantly in anything written about the subject, but it’s rarely explained why there are several types, or whether the difference actually matters if you’ve found some in your own property. Here’s the honest answer to both.

How many types are there?

Strictly speaking, six minerals are classed as asbestos, split into two families. Chrysotile stands alone in the “serpentine” family, with soft, curly fibres. The other five – crocidolite, amosite, tremolite, actinolite and anthophyllite – belong to the “amphibole” family, with straighter, needle-like fibres.

In practice, only three were ever used at any real scale in UK buildings: white asbestos (chrysotile), brown asbestos (amosite) and blue asbestos (crocidolite). The other three amphiboles were barely used commercially in their own right here, and mostly matter as occasional contaminants found in other minerals rather than as a material you’d knowingly encounter. When people ask about “the three main types”, these three are what they mean, so that’s where the practical detail below is focused.

White asbestos (chrysotile)

By far the most widely used of the three, accounting for the large majority of all asbestos used worldwide. Its soft, curly fibres made it easy to work into an enormous range of products: the cement sheets used in corrugated garage and outbuilding roofs, floor tiles and their adhesive, textured ceiling coatings, rope, gaskets and some insulating board. It was also the last type still legal to use, banned completely in the UK only from 1999 – see our full timeline of the UK asbestos ban. It stayed legal longer because it was regarded at the time as less hazardous than the amphibole types. It’s still a proven, serious health risk, which is why current UK practice no longer treats any type as the “safer” one.

Brown asbestos (amosite)

Amosite gets its name from an acronym – Asbestos Mines of South Africa, where most of it was mined. Its straighter, needle-like fibres are generally considered more hazardous than chrysotile’s. It was widely used in thermal and pipe insulation, insulating board and ceiling tiles – asbestos insulating board (AIB), which we cover in our guide to what UK law says about removing asbestos yourself, commonly contained amosite. It was banned, along with blue asbestos, in 1985.

Blue asbestos (crocidolite)

Crocidolite has the thinnest, sharpest fibres of the three and is generally regarded as the most hazardous type. It turns up in some insulation and cement products, and was even used at one point as a filter material in some gas masks. Like amosite, it was banned in 1985.

Does the type matter once it’s in your home?

Practically, no. All three are dangerous once disturbed, and as we explain in our room-by-room guide to what asbestos looks like, you can’t reliably tell one type from another – or confirm it’s asbestos at all – just by looking. Current UK regulations and good practice treat any suspected material with the same level of care regardless of which of the three it turns out to be. The real question is never really “which type is this”; it’s whether the material is damaged, and what needs to happen next.

If you want a definite answer rather than a guess, get in touch and we’ll test it properly and tell you exactly what you’re dealing with.