There Are Now 41 Sites Across Sydney Contaminated With Asbestos Mulch

Sydney’s asbestos crisis deepened over the weekend as seven more sites were found to contain asbestos-contaminated mulch, including schools and a supermarket.

The city’s annual Mardi Gras Fair Day was cancelled last Thursday after asbestos-contaminated mulch was found at Victoria Park.

An investigation over the weekend by the NSW Environment Protection Agency (EPA) into hundreds of sites across the state where mulch from the same supplier was present identified asbestos at five schools and an Aldi grocery store in Cobbitty.

The EPA’s new asbestos task force has now confirmed there are 41 sites across the state contaminated with bonded asbestos. On Sunday, the EPA said 683 tests had returned negative results since January 10.

Asbestos is a natural mineral made up of microscopic fibres, popular in the manufacture of building and construction materials in Australia from the 1940s until 1987.

When products containing asbestos break down, the carcinogenic fibres enter the air and are easily breathed in, where they become trapped in the lungs and can cause inflammation, disease, and Mesothelioma, a rare fast-growing cancer.

Australia was one of the highest users of asbestos per capita, before the health risks were known, and there has been a national ban on asbestos use in the country since 2003.

However, products containing it are still present in our built environment, and Asbestos-related diseases contribute to around 4000 deaths a year in Australia.

The asbestos found at six of the seven Sydney sites is bonded, which means the asbestos is mixed in with cement or other products, where the threat is less immediate as the particles are less likely to enter the air.

NSW’s asbestos contamination crisis has been ongoing since the beginning of the year, when a child took home a piece of bonded asbestos from a playground at Rozelle parklands.

The supplier, Greenlife Resource Recovery, has said it was not responsible for the contamination. The facility at the centre of the crisis, a waste management site in Bringelly in Sydney’s south-west, has been the focus of multiple asbestos contamination pollution incidents 2016.

More than 130 EPA investigators are contact tracing the supply chain, from Greenlife to contractors and then landscapers.

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