Add Category
First a playground at the new Rozelle Parklands, now electrical substations and a strip of highway – mulch contaminated with bonded asbestos has been discovered in landscaping at multiple sites in Sydney's west and inner west.
The NSW Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is still investigating how the bonded asbestos came to be in the mulch, where it came from and who might be responsible.
In the meantime, the EPA, NSW Health, and other asbestos experts have said the public health risk was low.
What is bonded asbestos?
Safe Work Australia describes "bonded asbestos" as asbestos that is mixed with cement or resin to keep its fibres in place.
It is also known as non-friable asbestos.
This contrasts with friable asbestos, which is easily crushed into a powder.
Where has bonded asbestos been found in mulch?
Bonded asbestos was first discovered in recycled mulch near a playground in the Rozelle Parklands earlier this month, prompting the closure of the newly-opened park.
This week it was also found in recycled mulch used beside fenced-off electrical substations in the rail corridor at Dulwich Hill, Canterbury and Campsie, as well as along the Prospect Highway between Prospect and Blacktown.
Should the public be worried?
Jeremy McAnulty, the Director of Health Protection for NSW, said the risk to the public was low.
"Asbestos is common and it's in building materials quite widely across Australia, but as long as people aren't breathing in the fibres, then [there's not] a major risk," Dr McAnulty said.
NSW Health said most people were exposed to very small amounts of asbestos as they go about their daily lives and do not develop asbestos-related health problems.
Julia Collins from Australia's Asbestos and Silica Safety and Eradication Agency told the ABC that bonded asbestos was only risky if it was "damaged, disturbed or deteriorating".
"So, when asbestos is actually bonded in another material and the fibres are not released into the air, there won't be a risk associated with it," Ms Collins said.
"But if it's broken up and it's drilled into, when there's any damage done, when it's weathered and deteriorating, those fibres will then have a much higher risk of being released into the air.
"When asbestos fibres are inhaled, that's where the danger lies."
Ms Collins said the risk could not be fully understood though, until the extent of the contamination was known.
"It will always depend on what is the condition of the asbestos? Is it just bonded in pieces [or] are the pieces broken up and shredded?" she said.
"Then of course it's the extent of the contamination as well, like how many pieces are there? Is there just one piece or is there a lot of it? Because the health effects of getting a disease from inhaling it are related to the intensity and the duration of exposure."
Where is the investigation up to?
The EPA has delivered a Clean Up Notice to Transport for NSW for the removal of all the mulch in the Rozelle Parklands and surrounds, and issued a Prevention Notice to the supplier to stop the product being sold while the investigation is ongoing.
It has also said it will visit the substation and highway sites with a view to issuing Clean Up Notices for those and it will consider further regulatory action down the track.
Questions about how the bonded asbestos ended up in the mulch are still being investigated.
"This is a complex investigation involving multiple lines of enquiry, including the mulch supply chain and the potential presence of legacy asbestos at these sites," the EPA said in a statement.
"All lines of enquiry will involve complex investigations and testing, and we'll be looking into the entire supply chain, including the testing and monitoring of recycled mulch from production to delivery and placement.
"At this point in time, we cannot rule in or out any potential source for this contamination."
Where did the mulch come from?
South-west Sydney business Greenlife, which supplied the mulch for the Rozelle Parklands, said it "categorically refutes" that the contamination came from their recycled timber product.
The company said the mulch delivered was tested 20 times by the head contractor's independent field-testing lab to ensure it complied with the required relations.
"On all occasions, it was cleared of any asbestos contaminates," a statement from Greenlife said.
"Greenlife's recycled mulch was also independently tested by a well-respected [National Association of Testing Authorities] testing laboratory as part of Greenlife's own quality-control procedures."
Greenlife said it also tested samples of the remaining mulch on its site and those tests showed "unequivocally that there was no asbestos present".
The company said it had no visibility of how its product was used on site.
It said it was co-operating fully with the EPA's investigation.
It is not yet known where the mulch from the substations or the highway site came from.
Could other public sites be affected?
NSW Minister for Transport Jo Haylen said that her department was "proactively working with all of its contractors … to test in locations where a recycled mulch product has been laid within the last couple of months".
She said she had also received information from the Department of Education that schools do not use a recycled mulch product on their grounds.
The EPA has asked anyone who spots either contaminated mulch or illegally dumped asbestos to get in contact.
Chair of the Asbestos and Dust Diseases Research Institute, Peter Tighe, told the ABC asbestos was common, but he was surprised it had been found in mulch.
"We've had a problem with illegal disposal of a specific containing material for a number of years because Australia was one of the highest users of asbestos, the largest per capita in the world," Mr Tighe said.
"We do have a lot of legacy asbestos material that's still in our building environment, so the fact that it turns up from time to time is not that unusual.
"Governments really need to focus on removing asbestos from our built environment because while it continues to exist, we're going to continue to have episodes like the one at Rozelle."
If I buy mulch for my garden, could it contain asbestos?
An order made by the EPA in 2016 does not allow asbestos to be included in any mulch product.
Ms Collins said she does not believe the gardening public should be concerned.
"I would say there isn't a risk, but people do need to check garden mulch in the same way that you would check whether there's bits of plastic in [it] when you're buying it," Ms Collins said.
"If there's anything in there that doesn't look like organic material then you know you shouldn't be using it."
According to Bunnings, based on the quality control processes of suppliers, the risk of asbestos in the mulch they sold was considered to be low.
"We've got strong relationships with our mulch suppliers whose quality control processes are routinely audited to ensure their products are safe to sell, including annual audits from our compliance team," Bunnings director of merchandise Jen Tucker said.