Revealed: asbestos-contaminated waste found in landscaping material at new Sydney housing estate site
Asbestos-contaminated waste has been dumped at one of Sydney’s newest building projects after having been passed off as safe landscaping, according to whistleblowers.
Guardian Australia has spoken to multiple people who have revealed that contaminated soil was processed into a product known as “turf underlay” then taken to at least one new suburb, Oran Park, which will eventually be home to 25,000 households near Camden on Sydney’s south-west fringe.
The whistleblowers have provided pictures and recorded evidence of the waste being processed and transported to at least one site.
One council waste inspector told the Guardian he had inspected a site that he suspected contained dumped asbestos. It was confirmed that material containing asbestos was present but he was subsequently summoned to a disciplinary hearing by his council, which accused him of failing to follow proper procedures. He has since left their employment.
Experts say that if asbestos was being used in landscaping projects, it was a cause for huge concern.
“Without wanting to alarm people, this is a very worrying thing if asbestos is ending up in housing estates, because just one fibre being breathed in can cause health problems down the track,” said Gail Phillips, emeritus associate professor at Murdoch University and lead investigator in the Australian Asbestos Network project.
“There is no guaranteed level of safe exposure to asbestos,” she said.
“What you are describing sounds like a recipe for disaster: for the workers using it, for people building on the sites and for people who live in the houses and who will be gardening there.”
Asbestos fibres can cause mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer that is fatal. A single fibre can cause the disease. It is diagnosed mainly in people who worked with asbestos products.
Health authorities do not specify a level of asbestos that is safe, and current regulation aims to eliminate it from the environment.
Camden council told the Guardian it reported the incident involving asbestos on land in Oran Park to the Environment Protection Authority and Safe Work NSW in November 2019.
The head of waste compliance at the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Greg Sheehy, confirmed that the agency had received a report but could not provide details. The Guardian understands an investigation is ongoing.
‘Lots of waste had been mulched in together’
There are concerns that the practice of using contaminated soil as the immediate layer below grass has resulted in large areas being affected by asbestos.
The developer of Oran Park, Greenfields Development Corporation, which is owned by the Perich family, insists only one load was delivered and that the contaminated soil, which was put onto a reserve on the northern part of Oran Park, away from existing housing, has now been removed.
But the general manager of Greenfields, Mick Owens, also admitted that the plant producing the turf underlay might have been operating illegally on its land for two to three months before it was discovered by the council, raising questions about whether there was more widespread use.
Greenfields said it gave permission to a contractor to use the site for stockpiles and that it had no idea where the asbestos-contaminated material came from.
Greenfields said it shut down the operation as soon as they discovered it. Owens said: “We are satisfied there is no risk to surrounding residents.” He
also confirmed there had been contact with the EPA, claiming the EPA said “it was not a big enough issue to warrant a clean-up notice”.
Asbestos, which was used extensively as a building material in Sydney in the post-war boom until the 1970s, is relatively safe when it is in bonded sheets. But any process that creates dust and loose fibres carries huge risks, which is why there are strict rules surrounding its removal from buildings and its disposal.
Crushed asbestos in soils could be extremely dangerous because owners of these properties will not be aware of its presence when they renovate, dig in the garden, or if the grass cover is lost during dry spells.
There are also risks to workers handling the soil products, unaware that it is contaminated.
The whistleblowers who have approached the Guardian include a former waste inspector from Camden council, Elliot Moore, as well as truck drivers and plant operators employed by a contractor working on the construction of Oran Park.
Moore was tipped off about a suspected illegal processing plant operating on a part of the new development that was not visible from the road.
Moore, a former policeman, said: “Obviously my interest was raised.
“I did a drive-by and couldn’t see anything because I drove on the roads. But then I drove on to the land and it was only when I got to the end of a small road that there appeared to be a processing facility hidden behind piles of dirt,” he told the Guardian.
“I looked at the material being processed and I could identify what I believed to be asbestos-containing material – small pieces of fibro that had been broken up. It looked like a demolition job and lots of waste had been mulched in together and crushed up so it could be transported.”
‘In NSW there is no safe level of asbestos’
On the morning of 5 November 2019, Moore returned to the processing site with another staff member to further investigate the processing site, which was in full swing. There he took photos of two sorting machines, known as trommels, which were processing building waste into different piles of varying size pieces.
“They were taking scoops of material out of a large pile and putting it into a trommel, and it was separating it into large pieces, medium pieces and dirt,” Moore said. “Then I watched them pick up the dirt that had come from the pile where the asbestos was and that was placed in a second trommel and mixed with other dirt that was there.
“It was spewing into a large pile and the large pile was then being picked up by a machine and being placed in the back of the truck and driven off-site.”
Moore took photographs of trucks bearing the signage of Waratah Landscape Supplies.
He also took a number of pictures of the piles, which appear to show pieces of fibro among the soil and building rubble being processed. They also show a sign next to the final soil pile that is next to a sign saying, “Turf Underlay”.
Subsequent testing, by an accredited laboratory, Safe Environments, revealed that several of the larger pieces collected by Moore contained chrysotile and crocidolite asbestos.
While Moore was visiting the site, three trucks from Waratah Landscape Supplies arrived and filled up. Two were recalled but one completed its delivery that day.
Moore does not know where the truck took the materials, but Waratah Landscapes has a contract to supply landscape materials to a number of contractors working on the new subdivisions in south-west Sydney, including Oran Park.
The trommels were operating within 500m of occupied houses and trucks were entering and using existing suburban streets.
Waste containing asbestos must be processed only by a facility licensed to deal with asbestos. There are strict rules about how it must be handled and the safety equipment that should be worn. This includes mixed waste that includes fragments of asbestos.
“In NSW there is no safe level of asbestos,” the EPA’s Sheehy said. “Under our legislation it is actually an offence to reuse or reprocess asbestos waste.”
Waratah’s chief executive, Jason
Bartolo, said it was not the company’s intention to use landscape material with asbestos. He said he believed he had purchased virgin excavated natural material (VENM) when he took delivery of a contaminated load of building waste.
“No check of the materials were undertaken by Waratah during the importation as it was assumed that the materials met the classification they were sold under,” he said. “The source of the building materials is unknown as they came from a different site from the one on the report that Waratah received.
“The contaminated soil only affected the material to be used for turf underlay. Other materials stored on site – bedding sands gravels etc – were not impacted,” he said.
Bartolo confirmed that one truckload of turf underlay was taken from the site for use in a local park but said the truckload of material was not spread out. He said that after they became aware of asbestos concerns, all of the material taken to the park was collected and returned to the compound.
According to Bartolo, both the footprint where the underlay was placed at the park and the underlay itself was tested once, returned to the site, and no asbestos was reported.
Moore said it was implausible in his mind that only one truckload of contaminated turf underlay was taken from the site, as he believed the plant had been operating for months.
“I was notified two to three weeks before I found the site by my informants about the processing plant,” he said. “They told me they thought there was ACM [asbestos-contaminated material] there.
“I went looking for it and couldn’t find it the first time because it was well hidden behind a mound. But I found it the second time.
“There were thousands of tonnes of asbestos-contaminated material there. Where did all that material come from?”
“It’s amazing that only [one load] of contaminated turf underlay left the site and that was on the day that I went there,” Moore said.
New $35m council centre built on land donated by Greenfields
A week after reporting the illegal waste processing facility, Moore received a notice from Camden council asking him to attend a disciplinary meeting.
The letter said he had failed to follow instructions to raise a formal complaint and seek specialist advice about the site that was processing material, including potentially asbestos.
Moore was also told he had “acted on information from an informant”, had not been instructed to use informants, and had refused to disclose the name of his informant.He was also accused of putting himself and other council staff in harm’s way by exposing them to asbestos without wearing personal protective equipment.
At that point Moore decided to resign from the council, though he believes he would have been sacked for his actions if he had not.
“Operationally, I made a couple of mistakes, there’s no denying it,” Moore said. “But at the end of the day, it was a good job, moving on people who had come to the notice of council multiple times. It amazed me no one said it was a good job.”Moore said he did not know what happened as a result of his report to the council, which was also sent to the EPA.“I had identified a second site [where waste was being processed] on an adjoining block that I wanted to investigate and I pressed the EPA and council to pursue the matter, because as far as I was aware there was no DA [development application] there as well,” he said.
Moore said he was prepared to speak out because he believed there was a reluctance by Camden council to investigate the incident because of its close relationship with Greenfields.Camden council’s new $35m administration centre, which includes the council chambers, was built on land donated by Greenfields. The council received a 1-hectare site for $1 as part of a deal with Greenfields to convince the council to locate its new offices at the site.
At the time, the council realised this could pose a conflict of interest and sought advice from the corrruption watchdog, the independent commission against corruption. The Perich family is one of the wealthiest families in south-west Sydney. It owned the largest dairy in New South Wales, the Leppington Pastoral Company, but as Sydney has expanded it has become one of the biggest property developers, turning its once-rural holdings into new suburbs. The family also sold part of their land for the Badgerys Creek airport. Over the past 15 years the family and its companies have donated more than $300,000 to the major political parties. Until 2009, it donated to both Liberal and Labor, mainly to the state divisions. But following the NSW ban on developer donations, it shifted its donating to the federal Liberal party.
Camden council said it engaged independent legal advice to draft the sale contract with Greenfields Development Company, while also engaging a probity adviser and auditor to oversee the process.
Meanwhile, Waratah has said it was working with the EPA, the council, Greenfields and Douglas Partners – the landowner’s environmental consultant – to manage the materials imported to the site.
“No clean-up notice was issued,” Bartolo said. “Douglas Partners provided a removal strategy which included the assessment of all stockpiled material to allow for the removal of materials for either reuse or disposal. The EPA and council has approved the removal strategy.”
According to Bartolo, the location where the stockpiles are stored was vacant, undeveloped land, and a considerable distance from residential areas. He claimed that based on a risk assessment for the site, the risk to residents and workers was low.
Greenfields said the contaminated material was still on site but would be removed to an approved landfill.
I could identify what I believed to be asbestos-containing material
Elliot Moore, former waste inspector