But this latest asbestos scare is just the tip of the iceberg. More are inevitable without a coherent national strategy to clean up the legacy of rogue companies like James Hardie,whose extraordinary growth saw Australia become the world’s biggest per capita user of asbestos cement.
Hardie itself dumped thousands of tonnes around its capital city factories – at Camellia,in Parramatta,as well as Melbourne’s Sunshine,Perth’s Welshpool,Brisbane’s Newstead and Adelaide’s Elizabeth. In areas surrounding these factories,people used Hardie waste to line their garages and driveways;the former market gardeners around Dural had paths made from asbestos tailings,which left a trail of the cancer mesothelioma in their wake.
Significantly,when Bernie Banton and Greg Combet struck theirlandmark compensation deal in 2007 for the company to continue paying its asbestos victims after its relocation to the Netherlands,Hardie insisted that remediation of its former waste sites was specifically excluded.
While the mulch in your local park might be a cause for concern,why look so far afield? Take a good look at your own house or your child’s school.
An estimated one in three Australian houses have asbestos present. It’s in the eaves,under the floor,in the switchboard,in the ceiling,in garage walls and fences… And while the focus is currently on mulch in the school playgrounds,what about the school buildings themselves? Hundreds,if not thousands,of schools still have asbestos cement walls,eaves and ceilings.
Don’t be fooled by the expert reassurances that only friable,or dusty,asbestos is dangerous. It’s true that dust is the danger:inhaling the microscopic particles of asbestos dust can decades later result in the deadly cancers caused by asbestos,and no safe level of exposure has yet to be identified.