About Buckman Laboratories — Cadet

Buckman Laboratories International, Inc. is a privately held specialty chemical company founded in 1945 by Dr. Stanley J. Buckman in Memphis, Tennessee. The company manufactures and distributes industrial chemicals used in paper manufacturing and processing, water treatment, leather tanning and finishing, personal care products, and chemical distribution and warehousing.

Over eight decades, Buckman expanded into a global operation with facilities, distribution centers, warehouses, and research laboratories across the United States. Missouri — and specifically the St. Louis metropolitan area and the Mississippi River industrial corridor — has served as a hub for Buckman’s operations and those of its contractors and service vendors.

The Mississippi River corridor stretching from St. Louis south through Jefferson County and north through St. Charles County is one of the most densely industrialized stretches of inland waterway in the United States. Chemical manufacturing, paper processing, and heavy industry lined both banks of the river for much of the twentieth century. Workers from this corridor — including those who may have worked at Buckman-affiliated facilities or at nearby operations such as the Labadie Energy Center, Portage des Sioux Power Plant, Monsanto’s Sauget and Creve Coeur operations, and Granite City Steel across the river in Madison County, Illinois — frequently moved between jobsites.

Chemical manufacturing runs on heat, pressure, flammability, and corrosion. From the 1940s through the 1980s, asbestos-containing materials were the industry standard for managing those hazards. Missouri chemical facilities along the Mississippi River industrial corridor were built, expanded, and maintained using the same material specifications that governed industrial construction nationwide.

General Equipment at Buckman Laboratories — Cadet

The equipment below represents the systems and infrastructure documented or typically present at this facility during the era when asbestos-containing materials were specified in industrial construction. This is general facility-equipment reference — not a legal attribution of any specific product, manufacturer, or exposure event to this facility. Material-category and manufacturer information is addressed in the AsbestosIndex Product Crosswalk linked under the records table below.

Industrial Boilers View crosswalk › Process Piping View crosswalk › Pipe Insulation View crosswalk › Block Insulation View crosswalk › Valves View crosswalk › Gaskets View crosswalk › Pumps View crosswalk › Heat Exchangers View crosswalk › Cooling Equipment View crosswalk ›

Documented Asbestos Evidence

The records below are verified, state-documented asbestos removals at this facility. Each entry represents a regulated abatement project where the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (Missouri DNR) was notified under federal NESHAP rules, the work was logged, and the asbestos-containing material was confirmed and removed under regulated conditions. These are not allegations or estimates — they are paper records tying documented asbestos-containing material to this specific site.

No Missouri DNR NESHAP abatement notifications have been identified for this facility in current public records. Per the framing above, absence of state-agency documentation should not be read as absence of asbestos — only as absence of a formal, regulated abatement event meeting reporting thresholds. Workers who recall encountering pipe insulation, block insulation, gaskets, or other asbestos-era construction materials at this facility may still have viable claims regardless of whether a state record exists.

Material Categories in Documented Records

The materials documented above (and similar asbestos-containing materials commonly encountered in records of this type) appear in the AsbestosIndex catalog with historical manufacturer and trust-fund information. Click a category to view manufacturers historically associated with that material:

Thermal System Insulation View crosswalk › Asbestos-Cement Board View crosswalk › Pipe Insulation View crosswalk › Roofing & Flashing View crosswalk › Spray Fireproofing View crosswalk › Floor Tile & Mastic View crosswalk › Ceiling Tile View crosswalk › Gaskets & Packing View crosswalk ›

Who May Have Been Exposed at Buckman Laboratories — Cadet

Workers who may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials at Buckman-affiliated or Buckman-serviced Missouri facilities include:

  • Direct Buckman employees in manufacturing, maintenance, research, and operations roles
  • Contractors and subcontractors performing construction, repair, renovation, and decommissioning work
  • Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1 members assigned to Buckman facilities or customer sites where asbestos-containing materials were serviced
  • UA Local 562 pipefitters and steamfitters who worked on process piping and steam systems at chemical manufacturing facilities throughout the St. Louis area
  • Boilermakers Local 27 members who maintained and repaired boilers, heat exchangers, and pressure vessels at Missouri chemical plants
  • Electricians installing and maintaining electrical systems through asbestos-containing walls and ceilings
  • Chemical operators and process workers stationed near insulated equipment and piping
  • Laboratory personnel working in research and quality-control environments with legacy building materials and equipment

Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1, based in St. Louis, represents one of the most consistently documented high-exposure trade groups in Missouri asbestos litigation. Insulators applied, maintained, repaired, and removed pipe covering, block insulation, and insulating cement — operations that directly released asbestos fiber into breathing zones with every cut, tear, and removal. Workers in this trade allegedly handled asbestos-containing materials on a daily basis throughout their careers, worked in enclosed spaces where fiber concentrations could reach dangerous levels, often received materials from multiple manufacturers without uniform safety data, and were allegedly not routinely provided with adequate respiratory protection until well into the 1980s.

United Association Local 562 covers pipefitters and steamfitters throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area. Pipefitters at chemical manufacturing facilities allegedly worked directly adjacent to asbestos-insulated process piping throughout their careers.

Critical Filing Deadline & Next Steps

Missouri law gives mesothelioma and asbestos-disease claimants 5 years from the date of medical diagnosis to file a personal-injury lawsuit (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 516.120). For wrongful-death claims after an asbestos-related death, the filing window is 3 years from the date of death (Mo. Rev. Stat. § 537.100). The two deadlines run on separate tracks — preserving one does not extend the other.

The personal-injury clock runs from diagnosis, not from exposure. Mesothelioma latency is typically 20 to 50 years, so workers exposed in the 1950s–1980s are being diagnosed today.

Practical first steps

  1. Document what you remember. Pay stubs, W-2s, union cards, photographs, coworker names, and dates of employment. The WorkChain widget on this page can save a copy you can email yourself.
  2. Preserve medical records. Pathology reports, biopsy results, imaging, and pulmonary-function tests are central to both civil claims and trust-fund filings.
  3. Identify household members. Spouses who laundered work clothing and children of plant workers are eligible for secondary-exposure claims when diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.
  4. Speak with an asbestos attorney with Missouri experience. The first conversation is free and confidential. Asbestos trust-fund claims and civil claims run on different tracks — both can be pursued in parallel.

Asbestos-Related Diseases

Asbestos fiber exposure can cause several specific diseases that typically appear decades after the original exposure. The latency period — the gap between exposure and diagnosis — usually runs 20 to 50 years. That's why workers exposed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are receiving diagnoses today.

Mesothelioma

A rare, aggressive cancer that affects the lining of the lungs (pleural mesothelioma), abdomen (peritoneal), or heart (pericardial). Mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure, which is why a mesothelioma diagnosis often points directly to historical workplace exposure. Average latency from first exposure to diagnosis is 30-50 years.

Asbestosis

A chronic, non-cancerous scarring of lung tissue caused by inhaled asbestos fibers. Asbestosis causes progressive shortness of breath, persistent cough, and reduced lung function. It does not improve with treatment, and it is a recognized basis for compensation under most trust schedules and civil claims.

Lung Cancer

Asbestos exposure significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, particularly when combined with a history of smoking. Asbestos-related lung cancer is compensable under the same trust schedules and civil claim avenues as mesothelioma.

Other Recognized Diseases

Pleural plaques, pleural thickening, laryngeal cancer, ovarian cancer, and certain gastrointestinal cancers are also recognized as asbestos-related under various trust schedules and case-law authorities, though eligibility and proof requirements vary by claim type.

If you have any of these diagnoses and you worked at this facility, lived with someone who did, or were exposed in any documented capacity, you may have a claim worth pursuing. Speak with an attorney before assuming you don't qualify.

Cross-State & Regional Corridor Workers

Workers from this corridor — including those who may have worked at Buckman-affiliated facilities or at nearby operations such as the Labadie Energy Center, Portage des Sioux Power Plant, Monsanto’s Sauget and Creve Coeur operations, and Granite City Steel across the river in Madison County, Illinois — frequently moved between jobsites. They shared exposure histories rooted in the same industrial materials, the same union halls, and the same decades of unprotected work.

Data Sources

Information about facility equipment, industrial materials, and occupational records referenced on this page is drawn from publicly available sources where applicable, including:

If specific equipment or product claims in this article are sourced from a non-public database, the source is identified parenthetically within the text above.