Another suggestion:
  Zippered see-thru plastic bags are the most practical way to handle most of
the storage/handling/seeing problem in our mineral collection, I have found.
I use them for the asbestiform minerals, the radioactive minerals, the mercury
minerals, etc.  They are inexpensive, come in a variety of sizes (I get them
from University Products in Mass.). they allow you to see and handle the
material without encountering any undue hazards from dust, radon, vapor, etc.
You can put the specimen in its box in the bag, or bag the specimen and put
it in a box. Lots of choices here.
  For cleaning up the dust in a drawer with loose asbestos, or other
potentially
hazardous dust, be very carefull when using vacuum cleaner. Often the finest
dust goes right through, and that is the dust you want the very least.  We use
damp paper towels to control the dust, and dispose of them in plastic trash
bags. You can contact hazardous waste control people to find  out how to
dispose of the trash bag.  You can label the trash bag, and that way no one
will accidentally handle the stuff.  Burying a vacuum cleaner bag seems a bit
awkward - where do you bury it? do you label it so that anyone finding it late
r will know what it is?  I don't mean to flame here, but it was not something
I had ever heard of before.
  One other note about zip-bags is that you can open them if you need to for
research purposes. You can change them easily if they are damaged, but I have
found that in normal collection circumstances the heavier plastic bags are
fine.
 
Another 2 cents
Ellen Faller     [log in to unmask]