Asbestos removal challenge on rise

A POST-COVID building boom is speeding up a massive asbestos challenge in Victoria, with more than 178,000 tonnes handled every year and a surge tipped by the end of the decade.

Specialists have warned the task of removing the dangerous material from the ground and buildings has only just begun, with major projects and housing construction continuing to boom.

Schools and renovated homes are also increasingly discovering asbestos and some remediators have doubled their workload this year.

The state government’s latest asbestos disposal management plan shows more than 178,000 tonnes of the material made its way into landfill in 2019-20 and this figure is forecast to increase to more than 310,000 by 2031.

Despite this, there are just 21 landfills across the entire state currently accepting asbestos and, over the next 30 years, this could plummet to just seven locations.

Dale Smith, managing director of environmental consulting company SCAADA, said vital projects would also continue to face delays and blowouts because of asbestos problems in soil.

He said spending time on remediation was significantly cheaper than ignoring contamination and later having to send massive amounts of toxic dirt to landfill.

“The old method was just to bury it in a hole but now that storage capacity has started to close up,” he said. “As you look to Melbourne’s north and west a lot of the places that were landfill sites are now development sites.

‘The longer this stuff is buried, there’s a risk the soil around it becomes contaminated … Soil remediation is going to be the next frontier of the asbestos issue.

‘The smart developers and builders are taking that on board because it significantly delays their projects.”

New technology now allows specialist companies to separate toxic materials such as asbestos from the ground, sparing builders the landfill headaches that have plagued other major projects.