Asbestos Contaminated Soil Illegally Dumped In Sydney's West.

Police are on the hunt for the culprit responsible for dumping 8 tonnes of asbestos contaminated materials on a suburban street in Chester Hill. 

Residents of the Western Sydney suburb woke up Monday morning to find debris scattered all over the road after being illegally dumped at 1am that morning. The road was soon taped off by police as fire crews in hazmat gear began to sift through and clean up the dumped material, which consisted mostly of asbestos contaminated soil.  

Asbestos contaminated waste dumped in the middle of the road in the Sydney suburb of Chester Hill. 

Understandably the residents of the affected street were not happy about the illegal dumping, with one commentator going as far as calling the individuals responsible for dumping the material ‘potential murders’. 

Sure, the phrasing might be a tad dramatic, but the links between asbestos and fatal health conditions like mesothelioma are well established, meaning that the dumped materials pose a serious health risk to the affected street’s residents. 

Although it may not make the headlines, asbestos contaminated soil is sometimes found when undertaking demolition, excavation or construction works. 

Most home owners are completely unaware that there could be unwanted asbestos buried underneath their house foundations or below their backyard. This is usually due to illegal and improper disposal of asbestos from past demolition, renovation or building works. 

Regardless of how it got there, the result is the same: broken pieces of asbestos sheeting scattered throughout the soil. These pieces of asbestos sheeting are easily identified by the waffle-shaped pattern on their underside. 

Asbestos fibre board often features a walfle pattern on its underside. 

If asbestos contaminated soil is found on your property there are two main courses of action that can be taken:

1. All the contaminated soil can be excavated and disposed off as asbestos contaminated waste. Although straightforward, this solution means that all the soil must be disposed of as asbestos waste, costing roughly $330 to dispose of per tonne.
2. If the contamination is mainly surface level, an asbestos removal crew can be brought in to hand-pick the pieces of asbestos from the soil. Although tedious, this ensures less asbestos waste and therefore a lower disposal fee. 

Asbestos hiding amongst the soil. 

Both of these options require a trained asbestos removal crew and supervisor to undertake and supervise the asbestos removal works as well as a third party certifier to approve that the previously contaminated area is now free of asbestos. 

Although alarming, by acting quickly and soliciting a professional asbestos removal company, asbestos contaminated soil can be throughly and safety removed. 

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Canberra based demolition and excavation company, Samarkos Earthmoving, has been fined the sizeable sum of $60,00 dollars for work safety breaches.

The breaches occurred back in 2015 when Samarkos was contracted to demolish a house previously riddled with 'Mr Fluffy', an asbestos based insulation product. The house was located on Darke street, in the ACT suburb of Torrens.

Unlike a lot of other asbestos based building materials, which usually consist of asbestos fibres in cement, Mr fluffy is made of friable asbestos, which has its fibres exposed. This makes Mr Fluffy extremely dangerous, as fibres can easily become airborne. For this reason the removal of Mr fluffy is strictly regulated and the common practice for its removal is to use special vacuuming equipment. 

A roof containing Mr fluffy

My Fluffy never saw wide use in most of Australia (it is still found in some Sydney homes  and even recently in the Sydney Opera House); however, Canberra has a significant number of homes containing the product, most famously in its now defunct Radburn Estates.  

During Samarkos' ill fated demolition an excavator operator proceeded to demolish the property before workers had a chance to spray the house down with water. Although the friable asbestos had been previously removed in accordance with regulation,  ACT health and safety laws also required that the house be sprayed with water before demolition to prevent the spread of dust. 

Predictably, after the house was first struck by the excavator, a huge cloud of dust rose into the air. If it contained asbestos fibres this dust cloud would have posed a serious health risk to the neighbouring houses, as well as the Samarkos workers on site. Fortunately, no evidence of contamination has been found.  

The Darke street property post-demolition 

Samarkos plead guilty to the breaches and because the plea was submitted to the Industrial Magistrate early the penalty was reduced from  $80,000 to $60,000. 

This case and the hefty financial penalty it carried are a timely reminder of the importance of safely and correctly removing asbestos, particularly highly hazardous friable asbestos. 

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One of the state's worst serial asbestos dumpers has continued to illegally dispose of hundreds of tonnes of deadly contaminated waste across Sydney after narrowly avoiding jail. Already owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, Dib Hanna failed to appear in court as the environmental regulator pursues him over eight fresh offences. Hanna had pleaded guilty to dumping 80 tonnes of asbestos-laced material on vacant land he broke into near Picnic Point in Sydney's south-west in 2012. "The asbestos had the potential to be blown by the wind into the air causing potential harm to the health of nearby residents who might breathe it in," Chief Justice of the Land and Environment Court, Brian Preston, found.The excavator and demolition contractor who at the time is paying off more than $200,000 in fines at a rate of $300 a month until 2072, having committed more than a dozen other offences. The Environment Protection Authority found that in December 2015 he had ditched 150 tonnes of waste near a home on Seventh Avenue in Llandilo, near Penrith. He was ordered in February last year to clean up the site, but six months later the waste was still there. The EPA found Hanna had dumped at least another 750 tonnes of asbestos-contaminated waste at properties in nearby Wallacia, Cranebrook and East Kurrajong, some vacant, others occupied. A property owner, who did not wish to be named, said she had responded to a flyer Hanna left in her letterbox advertising free top soil. Instead, she was left with waste that contained small shards of asbestos. The EPA said it could not comment on Hanna's case now that it was pursuing him for eight "repeat waste" offences, which carry a maximum penalty of $250,000 in fines, two years' jail or both.

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