https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-freeway-pollu...
But that's been outlawed now, presumably due to potential for metal toxicity (any mineral you need in your diet is also lethal at higher doses). We're leaving powdered copper at every stop light.
I don't think it's terribly harmful for humans if it's safe for a women's uterus. California tends to be exceptionally concerned for the environment in general. All that copper dust making it into the coastal marine environments isn't going to be good for it, considering the same stuff is used to keep marine life off boats.
edit:
"The issue has been under consideration since the 1990s, when cities south of San Francisco were having trouble meeting Clean Water Act requirements to reduce copper in urban run-off flowing into San Francisco Bay. Preliminary studies indicated that brake pads were a significant source of copper in that runoff. Tiny amounts of copper fall onto the streets and parking lots every time drivers step on their brakes."
from https://www.copper.org/environment/impact/copper-brake.html
As I suspected, it doesn't appear to be primarily a human toxicity concern. It's to protect the marine environment.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2006-05-04-06050400...
https://canada.autonews.com/article/20180107/CANADA/18010983...
Asbestos isn't that harmful, until it goes airborne. My understanding from research (I worked expanding a landfill that took asbestos at one point). is that the particles are too small to be caught by our bodies defenses and when it ends up in your lungs its cancerous. Asbestos in brakes seems like a bad idea.
I believe a lot of the stopping power comes from ceramic cinders in the pads. Those showed up in high end bicycle brake pads about 25 years ago, and I think they were old news in high performance cars before that. I have a fuzzy recollection that they trickled down into mid-tier vehicles not long after that. 2000-ish?
edit: Very odd that both mine and the contradictory reply to it are both down voted. What I said is a fact, so I'm not sure why anyone would disagree with it.
Edit: Yes, you can probably find some no-name pads with asbestos if you look hard. Nobody is selling them knowingly in the US or EU. There are definitively some pads/shoes from the far east that contain asbestos. They don't get purchased by the auto parts stores and big parts suppliers that supply the shops that change most of the countries brakes. They get sold to importers who don't care what they're made of who are selling them on Amazon/Ebay/etc to DIYers at bottom dollar prices. That is such a tiny slice of a tiny slice of all pads it's basically nonexistant.
Brake pads since 2015 sold in California and Washington must have less than 0.1% asbestos by weight (it's unclear to me if that's asbestos alone, or asbestos and other heavy metals like cadmium or mercury). Since the ban was put into place in 2015, you can reasonably infer a) that there were brake pads above that limit in 2014 and b) there are brake pads slightly under that limit today.
> The Raymark facility operated at (the Stratford) location from 1919 until 1989, manufacturing asbestos brake linings and other automotive asbestos products.
so it hasn't been true for 30 years. :)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raybestos#Superfund_site_clean...
[edit]
Thanks all for the clarification.
Apparently the company hasn't produced a product with asbestos in it since the 80s.