Sydney’s escalating asbestos mulch crisis started in early January when a child took home a piece of bonded asbestos from a playground at Rozelle parklands in the city’s inner west.
Parks closed after more asbestos was detected in mulch across the inner city, including friable asbestos discovered in mulch at Harmony Park in Surry Hills and Bicentennial Park in Glebe.
Mulch contaminated with bonded asbestos has also been detected at primary and secondary schools, with thousands of children affected by school closures over the past month.
The crisis has now spread to Queensland, with the state’s environment department announcing it had detected friable asbestos in product amid concerns that 25 entities including a school may have been supplied with asbestos contaminated mulch.
Here’s everything you need to know about the potential risks to children and young people.
Where exactly has asbestos been detected?
Playgrounds have been closed nearby to where bonded asbestos has been found in parks, but a spokesperson for the City of Sydney said the recycled mulch product in its LGA had been used in garden beds and under trees, not in playgrounds themselves.
“Playgrounds at North Rosebery Park and Jubilee Park, and part of the playground at St James Park in Glebe, have been closed off given their close proximity to mulch around affected trees and garden beds,” the spokesperson said.
“Given large parts of Pirrama Park in Pyrmont are fenced off, there is no access to the playground. All other playgrounds remain open.”
Is bonded asbestos a risk to children?
Tim Driscoll, a professor of epidemiology and occupational medicine at the University of Sydney, said the risk for children who have been around areas where asbestos has been detected was “very, very, very low”.
The risk of asbestos related-diseases like mesothelioma and lung cancer comes from breathing in extremely fine fibres, which embed themselves in the air sacs in the lungs, causing damage. However, because almost all of [the asbestos found] has been bonded asbestos – meaning it is mixed with a harder substance such as concrete – it’s very unlikely the fibres will be released, Driscoll said.
Although bonded asbestos is not perfectly preserved because the mulch is processed waste, “unless it’s pulverised into powder, it’s not likely to get significant numbers of fibres released”, Driscoll said.
“The potential for the fibres to be released could also depend on how long the material has been around – because the longer it’s there, the more likely it is to break down just because of weathering or because something comes into contact with it,” he said.
NSW Health’s Dr Jeremy McAnulty said in a press conference on 20 February that the specimens of bonded asbestos identified are “not available to be aerosolised and breathed in”.
What about the friable kind?
If the asbestos is friable – as has been found at four sites – it’s easier for the fibres to be released and get into the air. But even so, the risk still remains low, Driscoll said.
“The exposure to any individual, whether adult or child, in this sort of circumstance is very low for a few reasons. One is that there’s not a lot of asbestos in any particular spot, and also that people are outside and so the level of concentration of fibres in the air that people breathe in is low,” Driscoll said.
Dr Matthew Govorko, the vice-president of the Western Australia branch of the Public Health Association of Australia, agreed “because the risk is directly proportional to the dose, and the dose in this instance is extremely low, therefore, so is the risk”.
At the 20 February press conference, which was held after friable asbestos was discovered in mulch at Bicentennial Park in Glebe, McAnulty said the friable kind had also been found to be low risk. “The fibre … was part of the material [of the] back of a tile, which indicates it is not available to be aerosolised or breathed in. So again, that has been identified as low risk.”
What about children who regularly play at a park?
“Even then it would be very, very low as well,” Govorko said. “When you’re talking about asbestos exposure, and asbestos-related diseases, the main populations you’re concerned about are workers or DIY home renovators.”
Those groups come into direct contact with asbestos-containing materials, for example when workers use a power tool on an asbestos-containing material it can generate high volumes of asbestos fibres in the air.
“This is not the case here,” Govorko said. “The exposure to the children, even if they’re going to the playground multiple times, would be very low … [because] the amount of asbestos fibres in the air would be very, very low.”
What if a child put a piece in their mouth?
The chief executive of the EPA, Tony Chappel, said the size of the pieces of bonded asbestos found are “relatively small, between the size of a 20c piece and a 50c piece”.
Govorko said the risk in relation to asbestos is primarily through inhalation, and the risk around ingestion is “much, much lower”.
“When you’re talking about airborne exposure, it’s these loose asbestos fibres – they’re dry, they’re in the air, they can be inhaled, these fibres are 50 to 200 times thinner than a human hair,” Govorko said.
“So when you inhale those dry particles into the lungs, they can penetrate really deep and they can embed themselves in the really small air sacs in the lungs, so they can cause scarring and inflammation in the lungs [which] can lead to cancer development.
“But when you’re talking about ingestion … it’s typical they’ll be clumped together, they’re bound, the fibres are wet and it’s more likely just to pass through to the other end. The real risk is that inhalation of those fibres.”
Driscoll agreed that “the risk comes from inhaling it … eating it almost certainly isn’t a problem – I don’t think we can say absolutely, for sure, but there isn’t really much evidence that there’s a problem in terms of ingesting it”.
So, should you be concerned?
Driscoll said: “All of us should be concerned that this has been allowed to happen, and that there’s asbestos contamination in public areas. So we definitely do not want that.
“But from everything that I understand in terms of the type and extent of the contamination, people should not be worried that they’re going to get asbestos-related cancer as a result of any exposure they could have had in these parks.
“If they’ve been walking in these parks or playing in these parks, they shouldn’t be worried that they will have got enough exposure to make a meaningful change or increasing the risk of getting any asbestos-related cancer.”
Driscoll said the group he is concerned about needing adequate protection are the workers who are now dealing with the exposure.
“The problem needs to be taken seriously because if the material’s just left there for years it will deteriorate and some exposure can occur,” he said.
