Asbestos in 946C Hotplate?

[BenjaminJAnderson]

Hello!

This is my first post so please tell me if I do anything wrong

I recently purchased a cheap hotplate from banggood.
https://www.banggood.com/200x200mm-946C-110-220V-850W-Hot-Plate-Preheat-Preheating-Desoldering-Station-for-PCB-SMD-Heating-p-1348275.html?rmmds=search&ID=515155&cur_warehouse=CZ

I was looking through the manual when I found this piece of text "石棉" in the component breakdown.

Is there really asbestos in this product?? or is this a misstranslation. I don't particularly want to open up the product to check.
How dangerous/detrimental is this product to my health?

Hopefully this isn't a stupid question.

[AVGresponding]

Asbestos is usually only dangerous when it's disturbed, as this causes microscopic fibres to get into the air and inhaled.

It is however not legal to use it in products in the UK, so if the translation is accurate, it's quite a serious breach.

You should contact your local trading standards, who can arrange for the suspect material to be tested if necessary.

You should not under any circumstances attempt to disassemble the device.

[amyk]

The Chinese characters for asbestos literally mean "rock wool" which unfortunately also refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_wool . Looking at the diagram, it does not appear to be in a friable form. Either way, not something I'd be worried much about. If it is asbestos, it is going to be chrysotile (the far less dangerous form; the others were banned and all mining stopped many decades ago) and looks like it will be in a molded plate.

[Cyberdragon]

I assumed that as well, but with no expertise in Chinese was not sure. People also still call fiberglass insulation "rock wool" since it originally used to be asbestos.

[AVGresponding]

The Chinese characters for asbestos literally mean "rock wool" which unfortunately also refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_wool . Looking at the diagram, it does not appear to be in a friable form. Either way, not something I'd be worried much about. If it is asbestos, it is going to be chrysotile (the far less dangerous form; the others were banned and all mining stopped many decades ago) and looks like it will be in a molded plate.

Sorry, but all forms of asbestos have been illegal to import and use in the UK since 1999.

If this is indeed asbestos, the importer and vendor are both in breach of the law.