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Asbestos a growing worry in renovation boom

Jul 7, 2008 | Staff | Otago Daily Times

As the ageing housing stock heads towards a wave of renovation and demolition work, there's concern that even those in the building trade do not know how to recognise asbestos.

"The current perception of risk amongst many New Zealand workers is that asbestos is not a significant problem and hence there is little pressure coming from them for action to improve their working conditions," a new Department of Labour report suggests.

The report, obtained by NZPA through the Official Information Act, consulted last August with a range of sectors which deal with asbestos (their identities have been withheld).

It calls for tighter controls and a national education campaign to prevent home owners and workers being unwittingly exposed to asbestos, a known carcinogen.

"The reason we don't want to address asbestos is it's such a big problem...It's the elephant in the room," one workshop representative said.

Why the concern? It's been 17 years since New Zealand put regulations in place to keep workers at minimal risk from asbestos, which is potentially in any building built between 1925 and the late 1970s.

The report noted a general view that many people believe asbestos is yesterday's problem, "and that it was completely removed from buildings in the 1970s and 1980s and is now banned in New Zealand".

In fact, the factories which used asbestos for insulation and as a fire retardant did stop using it in 1984, but the materials remain.

Now the Department of Labour (DoL) is reviewing its rules on asbestos in the workplace. The report set a worrying tone.

It said there would be an increase in redevelopment of properties over the next five to 10 years, about the same time that the ageing asbestos is likely to be deteriorating.

Of particular concern was the building industry, which has a high turnover and many young or migrant workers who were not around when asbestos was a hot topic in the 1990s.

"Asbestos is under the radar," one building industry organisation said.

"Twenty percent of the industry will know it when they see it and deal with it properly, 20 percent will see it and try to hide it, and 60 percent will have no idea that it is asbestos."

"Asbestos hasn't been sold as a product for 25 years so the youngest person on site who knows what Fibrolite is, is at least 40 to 45," a demolition and asbestos contractor added.

Other concerns outlined in the report included the disposal of asbestos, which attracts high tip fees, and the trend towards crushing up suspect building materials for fill.

Some said DoL guidelines were out of date and not explicit enough about how to manage the risk.

Still others felt that current workplace standards still permitted workers to inhale millions of fibres over the course of a working life - a matter which DoL says it may alter in line with international practice.

The report's author, Mike Cosman, a former national operations manager for Occupational Safety and Health, says there's also evidence that building products with asbestos in them are coming into the country unlabelled.

Their entry is not illegal but being unlabelled is.

"Given that we have relatively free trade with the rest of the world, there are quite a limited number of things that are actually banned so we are not very well set up for surveillance other than for things like drugs and perhaps biosecurity risks."

The Department of Labour says its review may consider such a ban.

Another good reason for the review is an awareness in industry that it's no longer just the former factory workers getting sick from asbestos.

The report estimates about 200 people a year are believed to die from asbestos-related diseases each year, although it is difficult to confirm this because of under-reporting.

The only guide is a voluntary, worker-oriented exposure register set up by DoL in the early 90s.

Some 926 illnesses were recorded between 1992 and 2005 , including 164 of mesothelioma, a terminal cancer almost always linked to asbestos.

While cases of asbestos-related disease from insulation, energy and manufacturing activities are starting to decline, "new cases arising from incidental exposure involving people working in sectors such as building maintenance, plumbing, telecommunications, demolition, etc, are on the increase."