Once again, another horrifying sage of dumped asbestos turning up in the wrong place, with potentially fatal consequences.
As the Guardian reported, Asbestos has been found in additional samples of garden mulch taken from the Rozelle parklands in Sydney’s inner west, with the state government still unable to say where else in the city the contaminated material may have been used.
After an initial find, an urgent audit was under way to determine what other sites could be affected by what the premier, Chris Minns, described as “a toxic substance”. The government closed the Rozelle parklands to the public and called in contamination experts just three weeks after the park opened above the interchange.
The nearly 10 hectares of green space includes extensive cycleways and green expanses alongside large exhaust stacks for the tunnels below. The parkland was meant to appease inner west residents who had put up with years of tunnelling noises and road closures during the construction of the Rozelle interchange.
The premier said the government needed to know where potentially contaminated mulch had been used “as soon as possible” so it could close the other sites.
“I realise that is massively inconvenient during the school holidays … but we can’t muck around with safety – this is obviously a toxic substance,” Minns said.
John Holland built the interchange and the park. One of its executives, Mark Davies, said he could not immediately disclose a list of the other sites where the mulch had been used.
Over 97% of the asbestos products used in Australia was non-friable material in which the asbestos fibres were bonded by cement, vinyl, resin or other similar material. This form of asbestos product/material is often cited as quite safe unless damaged, sawn, drilled, sanded, crushed or is excessively weathered; But if any of these occur, then non-friable hard bonded asbestos products may release fibres and become friable.
In other words, bonded asbestos is not safe. Corrugated asbestos sheet roofing often shows signs of weathering. When it’s broken into smaller fragments, fibres are released. So Non-friable (bonded) asbestos has the potential to become equally as dangerous as friable asbestos, a distinction should never be made because of the type, colour or form of asbestos – all types, colours and forms of asbestos have the potential to kill people!
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