Corrugated and Flat Asbestos Paper — GAF Corporation (1928–1981)
Corrugated and flat asbestos paper was among the most widely distributed asbestos-containing sheet products manufactured during the twentieth century. GAF Corporation produced these materials across a broad span of decades, supplying them to roofing contractors, flooring installers, pipe insulators, and industrial facilities throughout the United States. Workers who handled, cut, or installed these products during their working years faced sustained exposure to airborne asbestos fibers, and many have since pursued compensation through the GAF Corporation Asbestos Settlement Trust.
Product Description
Corrugated and flat asbestos paper refers to a category of flexible, thin-sheet materials manufactured primarily from asbestos fibers bonded together with binding agents and processed into either a flat sheet or a corrugated profile. GAF Corporation, which operated under predecessor names including General Aniline and Film Corporation before becoming GAF Corporation, produced these sheet goods from approximately 1928 through 1981, when regulatory pressure and shifting liability concerns led to the gradual elimination of asbestos from commercial building and industrial products.
The flat variety functioned as an underlayment, vapor barrier, and thermal insulation layer in a range of construction and industrial applications. The corrugated form provided lightweight structural sheeting used in roofing panels, wall cladding, and pipe covering assemblies. Both forms were marketed for their resistance to heat, moisture, and fire — properties that asbestos fibers imparted naturally but that came at significant cost to the health of workers who encountered them.
GAF Corporation was one of the major domestic manufacturers of asbestos-containing building materials during this period, with product lines spanning roofing shingles, floor tiles, and specialty industrial papers. The corrugated and flat asbestos paper lines served as raw material components for finished assemblies as well as finished products sold directly to contractors and industrial purchasers.
Asbestos Content
Corrugated and flat asbestos paper manufactured by GAF Corporation contained asbestos fiber as the primary structural component. These products were not simply asbestos-containing by incidental contamination — the asbestos fiber matrix was the functional basis of the material, providing the tensile strength, heat resistance, and flexibility that made the sheet goods useful in construction and industrial insulation contexts.
Asbestos paper products of this type typically incorporated chrysotile asbestos, the most commonly used fiber variety in North American manufacturing, and in some formulations amphibole varieties such as amosite were incorporated to achieve higher temperature resistance. Both fiber types are classified as human carcinogens under established regulatory and scientific frameworks, including classifications maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency under AHERA (Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act) and standards established by OSHA governing permissible exposure limits for asbestos in occupational settings.
The fiber content in asbestos paper products was characteristically high relative to many other asbestos-containing materials, meaning that any activity that disturbed the sheet — cutting, tearing, abrading, or nailing — had the potential to release a significant concentration of respirable fibers into the surrounding air.
How Workers Were Exposed
Industrial workers across multiple trades encountered GAF Corporation corrugated and flat asbestos paper throughout the decades of its production and installation. Exposure occurred primarily through direct handling during fabrication, installation, and removal, and secondarily through bystander proximity to workers performing those tasks.
Roofing trades used asbestos paper as underlayment beneath finished roofing materials and as corrugated roofing panels on industrial and agricultural structures. Workers who cut sheets to size with hand saws, tin snips, or scoring tools released clouds of fiber-laden dust at the point of cutting. Nailing and fastening operations fractured the sheet material along stress lines, releasing additional fibers.
Flooring installation workers encountered flat asbestos paper as an underlayment and moisture barrier beneath resilient floor tiles and sheet flooring — other GAF product categories. Trimming the paper to fit room dimensions, stapling it to subfloors, and working in enclosed spaces with limited ventilation concentrated airborne fibers around the installer.
Pipe covering and insulation trades used corrugated and flat asbestos paper as wrapping material applied around steam pipes, hot water lines, and industrial process piping. Workers who measured, cut, and secured these wrappings worked in close proximity to the material for extended periods. In boiler rooms and industrial plant environments, these tasks were performed in confined, poorly ventilated spaces that maximized fiber accumulation.
General industrial workers in manufacturing facilities, shipyards, power plants, and refineries encountered asbestos paper as a component of insulated assemblies, gasket stock, and thermal barrier applications. Maintenance workers who removed, repaired, or replaced aged and deteriorating asbestos paper faced particularly high exposures, as friable and degraded material releases fibers more readily than intact product.
OSHA’s current permissible exposure limit for asbestos is 0.1 fiber per cubic centimeter of air as an eight-hour time-weighted average. Research and litigation records document that occupational exposures during the decades of active use of asbestos paper products routinely exceeded this threshold by substantial margins, particularly in the absence of respiratory protection and engineering controls that were not standard practice until the 1970s and later.