Asbestos Awareness

Asbestos is the collective name for a group of naturally occurring fibrous silicate minerals that were prized through most of the twentieth century for a rare combination of properties: they resist fire and heat, withstand chemical and biological attack, insulate against heat, electricity and sound, and were cheap and abundant. Those same properties saw asbestos worked into thousands of building products across Australia, which became one of the highest per-capita users of asbestos in the world. The legacy of that use is still embedded in the built environment that engineers and inspectors work in every day.

The three mineral types

Three forms of asbestos were used commercially in Australia, conventionally identified by colour:

How it was banned — and why timing matters

Because the phase-out was gradual, the practical rule for fieldwork is about age, not certainty: any structure built or refurbished before 1990 should be presumed to contain asbestos-containing material (ACM) until proven otherwise, and even early-1990s buildings can contain pre-ban stock. The fibres cannot be seen or smelled, so age and presumption — not visual inspection — are the front-line defence.

Asbestos is harmless while it is bonded and undisturbed. The danger begins the moment the material is broken — by cutting, drilling, sanding, demolition, impact, or simple age-related deterioration — because that releases microscopic fibres into the air. Once airborne, the fibres are easily inhaled and can lodge permanently in lung tissue, where they sit for decades before causing disease. This long fuse is what makes asbestos so insidious: the harm is done long before any symptom appears.

The three principal diseases

Why exposure is so hard to manage after the fact

• Symptoms commonly take 20 to 50 years to emerge, so a worker exposed today may not fall ill until retirement.
• There is no established safe level of exposure — even a brief, single exposure has been linked to mesothelioma.
• Smoking combined with asbestos exposure multiplies lung-cancer risk many times over.
• Australia carries one of the highest mesothelioma rates in the world as a direct consequence of its historical use.

Asbestos was incorporated into an enormous range of building products, which means it can appear almost anywhere in a structure built before the ban. For engineers, inspectors and trades working in, on or around older buildings, knowing the common hiding places of asbestos-containing material (ACM) is what turns a routine task into a controlled one.

Common locations in buildings

Residential stock

Virtually every Australian home built from the 1940s to the early 1980s contains asbestos in some form — most commonly in internal and external fibro sheeting, eaves linings, weatherboard-style cladding, chimney flues and heater surrounds, and fence panels. This matters for engineers carrying out alteration, addition or inspection work on residential buildings, where ACM is the default assumption rather than the exception.

How people actually get exposed

Real-world exposure rarely comes from intact, painted, undisturbed sheeting. It comes from disturbing ACM: drilling, cutting or breaking it during renovation or maintenance; inspecting demolition and renovation sites; the slow weathering and deterioration of old products; handling suspected samples without protection; and encountering naturally occurring asbestos in soil during earthworks.

Where asbestos is present or suspected in a workplace, the law does not leave its management to discretion. The WHS Regulations impose a specific, auditable management system, and the duties fall on the person conducting the business or undertaking (PCBU) — including, in many cases, the person with management or control of the premises.

The three pillars of asbestos management

Working safely near suspected ACM

If your work brings you near material that might be asbestos, the discipline is straightforward: stay alert to likely ACM in pre-1990 buildings; respect signage and barriers around known locations; never cut, drill, sand, scrape or break suspect material; if ACM appears damaged, keep fibres down by wetting it; and wear a P2 respirator as a minimum where airborne fibres are possible. Above all, do not attempt removal yourself — that is licensed work.

Most fieldworkers will never remove asbestos — that is licensed work — but many will need to work near it, take a suspected sample for testing, or encounter it unexpectedly in the ground. The controls for these situations are specific, and they extend beyond buildings to soil and to naturally occurring asbestos.

Handling suspected ACM safely

If you must work near, or take a sample of, suspected ACM, the minimum controls are: seek advice from a licensed asbestos assessor or occupational hygienist first; wear at least a P2 respirator (an ordinary dust mask is not adequate); label and double-bag any sample in sealed plastic; dispose of contaminated PPE through a licensed waste contractor; wash hands, face and exposed skin thoroughly; and never eat, drink or smoke where exposure is possible.

Asbestos in soil and naturally occurring asbestos (NOA)

Asbestos in the ground arises from three main sources: incomplete demolition of buildings that contained ACM, illegal dumping, and naturally occurring asbestos (NOA) present in certain rock and soil formations. NOA cannot be reliably identified by eye and can become airborne when soil is disturbed by drilling, excavation, pipe-laying, land clearing, road works, or even vehicle traffic on unsealed roads.

If suspected asbestos is found during earthworks the response is immediate and ordered: stop work, isolate the area, notify the manager, and keep the material wet and covered. Confirmed NOA must be assessed by a competent person, managed under an asbestos management plan, communicated to workers, and disposed of lawfully.

Reporting obligations

This is the course-wide final assessment, drawing on all five modules — what asbestos is and when it was banned, the health risks and their latency, where ACM is found, the legal management system, and safe handling, soil contamination and reporting.