28/11/2011
The holding of Asbestos Awareness Week during the last week of November has brought a timely reminder about the danger of Asbestos to the communities of South West Victoria.
Leading asbestos lawyer Gary Foster of Maddens Lawyers says that despite a growing public awareness as to the dangers of asbestos, the existence of asbestos product is still rife throughout the South West region. Mr Foster said that whilst the use of all forms of asbestos in Australia had been banned since 2003, including its import and export, it was still plentiful within the community and posed one of the most lethal products of the twentieth century.
Mr Foster said that it would take a month of Sundays to properly identify all the asbestos product in Warrnambool alone. He said that asbestos could be found in homes, commercial properties, beach houses, factories and farms. Fortunately, some of the more significant sites such as the Woollen Mill have been pulled down. Others such as the Warrnambool Hospital have been cleaned up over the years.
However, any house constructed prior to the early 1980’s quite possibly contained asbestos product either used to build walls, eaves, roofs, or to create dry areas in bathrooms, showers and laundries. Also, Mr Foster also noted that asbestos roofing was very popular in the construction of seaside homes because of its non-corrosive properties.
In particular, he warns that the so called “third wave” of exposure is upon us. Mr Foster said that there were three “waves” of acknowledged asbestos exposure. The first was to those who worked in the mines removing raw asbestos and then transported it from the mines to the factories where it was turned into various asbestos products. The second later “wave” was those who used those products in industrial settings, such as lagging of steam pipes and boilers in industrial factories, the manufacture of asbestos breaklinings and the use of asbestos sheet in construction of buildings including homes. The third “wave” of exposure is that of the so-called handy man.“These are the people who have, for example, conducted renovations to their home and either used asbestos product or demolished existing asbestos product or structures during the process. These are the people who, for example, built or demolished a bungalow, a garden shed, a farm shed or a chook house where asbestos sheet was being used in the construction.
Don’t be in any doubt that asbestos is still amongst us, and we have to be ever vigilant” Mr Foster said. “With these sorts of jobs it’s not just the blokes who are at risk, it’s also their wives and their kids who either helped with the job, were there when it was going on or assisted in the clean up.
My simple message to anyone that thinks they have asbestos in their home is to get expert advice about its removal, and if they have been exposed to asbestos in the past is to notify their medical practitioner immediately."