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Asbestos is a group of six fibrous minerals that occur naturally in metamorphic deposits located around the world. Asbestos' combination of properties made it a valuable resource and has been used in many commercial products as a roofing, flooring, and insulation material for building and on board vessel because it is a chemically inert mineral that is fire resistant, does not conduct heat or electricity and insoluble. These products may be found as hazardous material to human health since asbestos is a known carcinogen and almost all country has banned the used of asbestos as building or construction material whilst the SOLAS Convention has banned the use of materials containing asbestos from all ships without any exceptions at all in 2011. however, asbestos was still present on board of most of the vessel now a day.

There is a duty on employers to identify any asbestos containing material before commencing work especially on board vessel. Thus monitoring through air sampling or bulk sampling of asbestos is very important to assess and evaluate the exposure and potential health risk arise from asbestos to employees or occupants. The air monitoring aimed for airborne asbestos fibre sampling to assess the exposure of employees especially for asbestos removal project whilst, bulk asbestos sampling means a small portion of a suspect asbestos containing material collected to determine the asbestos content. Both monitoring method require laboratory analysis and the results could serve as the effectiveness of control measures.

Other reference guidelines include:

• International Maritime Organization - Guidelines for Maintenance and Monitoring of on-board Materials Containing Asbestos
• United States Environmental Protection Agency - Test Method for the Determination of Asbestos in Bulk Building Materials