The Age can reveal Hobsons Bay City Council awarded CityWide Service Solutions a contract worth $1.2 million in March 2022 for the Donald McLean Reserve playspace and associated community park upgrade in Spotswood.
A popular playground in Melbourne's west has closed down after a parent discovered asbestos in the mulch.
The company,chaired by former Labor premier John Brumby,is a wholly owned subsidiary of the City of Melbourne with its own board. It offers services including rubbish collection,landscaping and civil infrastructure.
Council minutes say the scope of works for the Spotswood contract included “pathways,seating,open areas for informal play,shade structure,barbeque facilities,drinking fountains,outdoor gym equipment,waste bins,basketball hoop,flying fox,roadside fencing and soft landscaping”.
Compound material found in tanbark near the new playground at Donald McLean Reserve.Jason Murphy
According to its website,the company carries out local government capital works from small upgrades to “large-scale revamps of reserves and parks”.
Hobsons Bay council confirmed on Thursday that CityWide was the head contractor for the reserve but that the company had engaged a subcontractor to complete the landscaping. The council did not say who the subcontractor was.
Four days after Hobsons Bay investigators and the Environment Protection Authority first inspected the park in Spotswood,authorities have not confirmed whether the asbestos material was dumped in the mulch after it was laid,or was contained in mulch delivered and laid between 2022 and 2023.
In response to questions from The Age,including whether mulching was part of the contractual scope of the project and,if so,where CityWide sources its mulch,a company spokeswoman on Thursday confirmed only that CityWide completed the park in March 2023 and that “at this time,the matter remains an issue for the EPA and Hobsons Bay”. The manufacturer of the mulch is unknown.
The company has completed numerous parks across Melbourne in recent years,according to its website,including Green Gully Reserve in Keilor Downs,Lakes Reserve in Taylors Lakes,Balwyn Park,Elwood Playspace,Morton Homestead and Bloomsbury Drive Reserve in Taylors Hill,and Arbour Boulevard North Reserve in Burnside Heights.
The Age revealed on Wednesday that two pieces of compound in Spotswood were confirmed to contain asbestos after being tested,and the playground had been taped off to the public.
On Thursday morning,Hobsons Bay council said other sites using the mulch – a recycled product used around mature tree planting – would now be examined.
Donald McLean Reserve in Spotswood was taped off on Wednesday after asbestos-containing material was found.Supplied
“We are conducting a thorough inspection of all open space and conservation areas where we have used recycled mulch from this specific supplier,” a council statement said on Thursday. “Softfall mulch surrounding playgrounds in Hobsons Bay uses a virgin mulch that complies with Australian standards.
“The[Donald McLean] playground will only be reopened once mulch has been reinstated and approved by the hygienist.”
The EPA told ABC Radio Melbourne it was investigating the source of the mulch.
“There are two possibilities. One is someone’s dumped a trailer load of mulch against the tree and it’s got mixed up into the mulch,or the mulch producer’s got some contamination in a batch of mulch,” Duncan Pendrigh,director of regulatory services,told the station’sBreakfast program.
“We will investigate both those possibilities.”
The state government has been approached for comment.
The municipality of Hobsons Bay includes the suburbs of Altona,Altona Meadows,Brooklyn,Laverton,Newport,Seabrook,Seaholme,South Kingsville,Spotswood and Williamstown.
This week’s asbestos discovery in Spotswood was first reported by a Melbourne father whose children were playing nearby. He found chunks of suspicious compound material,as well as insulated wires,chunks of brick and concrete,various kinds of plywood,and bits of wood with nails in them scattered throughout the tanbark.
It follows,where asbestos-contaminated mulch was found at 75 sites,including seven schools.
The EPA described the discovery of building rubble in the park as alarming,but said the asbestos chunks were only dangerous if broken down into dust.
“What’s alarming is building rubble in a park. Building rubble’s got no business being in mulch or in any park,” Pendrigh said.
Parts of Donald McLean Reserve were fenced off after the discovery.Supplied
“That’s a big issue. The asbestos will be bound in cement sheets that have been broken up into little pieces as part of the building rubble. So that doesn’t pose an immediate risk.”
“So people should be alert,not alarmed,in regards to the asbestos because asbestos is dangerous if you’re breathing dust with asbestos fibres in it,and there’s no way that that material can become a dust immediately.[But] handling it is not a good thing to do.”
The park opened in April last year after receiving funding through the West Gate Tunnel Project,as part of a state government initiative to improve parks and sporting facilities in the inner west.
A spokesperson for the tunnel project said the council oversaw the construction of the playground and was leading the asbestos contamination investigation.
Coalition environment spokesman James Newbury has called for the Allan government to explain how the contaminated product came to be at the reserve and to guarantee that other parks are safe.
“Every parent will be deeply concerned about asbestos being found near where children play,” Newbury said. “Asbestos is seriously dangerous and it’s just not good enough that the substance was there.”
Since an asbestos crisis started in Sydney in early January,mulch containing asbestos has been found at 75 sites,including seven schools,a supermarket,hospitals and numerous public parks.
The initial investigation was launched after a child took home bonded asbestos from a playground in Sydney’s inner west.
The Environmental Protection Agency has confirmed it has detected asbestos-contaminated mulch at a further seven Sydney sites.
The crisis quickly spread north. The Queensland Environment Department detected easily crumbled asbestos in February. The discovery sparked concerns that dozens of locations,including schools,had received asbestos-contaminated mulch.
Separately on Wednesday,the EPA warned Victorians to avoid mulch advertised on Facebook marketplace and Gumtree,after asbestos was found in free mulch given to a resident in Melbourne’s east.
Last week,Upwey High School and Upwey Primary School parents were told on a freshly redeveloped school oval in Melbourne’s outer east after state railway corporation VicTrack used the site as a temporary car park.
An EPA spokesperson said on Thursday that subsequent testing revealed no visual signs of asbestos on the oval and no asbestos fibres in the air.
EPA officers inspecting tanbark containing building waste at Donald McLean Reserve.Justin McManus
Asbestos is the name given to a group of naturally occurring minerals found in rock formations.
It was widely used across the building industry in Australia before it was banned in 2003 due to its carcinogenic properties.
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