Asbestos-ridden mulch could have been found on non-public properties in NSW, the Environmental Safety Authority (EPA) has revealed, as contaminated websites start being recognized exterior Higher Sydney.
With the EPA embarking on one of many largest investigations in its historical past, Setting Minister Penny Sharpe introduced an Asbestos Taskforce to coordinate authorities companies and enhance staffing ranges greater than 11-fold to cope with the disaster, warning the variety of contaminated websites “could also be within the a whole bunch”.
Testing of an preliminary 200 samples had a ten per cent optimistic charge, Sharpe stated, saying the taskforce, to be led by NSW Asbestos Coordination Committee chair Carolyn Walsh, was designed to make use of Covid-era contact tracing to find the place within the provide chain had the mulch been combined with asbestos.
Concord Park in Surry Hills was fenced off on Tuesday after asbestos was discovered.Credit score: Jessica Hromas
“One provider equipped to about 30 distributors, who’ve now distributed additional down the chain, and we predict it could possibly be over 100,” Sharpe stated on Thursday.
“We do perceive that it’s a large downside. However that is partly why the extra sources are being put in, and it’s additionally why we have to unravel the provision chain as rapidly as doable. There isn’t any doubt that there’s a failure right here. Asbestos shouldn’t be on this product.”
EPA chief govt Tony Chappel stated the company was urgently testing doubtlessly contaminated mulch found in non-public residences. The mulch had not been buy off-the-shelf, he stated, however fairly been acquired by means of “a number of layers of distribution after which on promoting”.
Whereas the vast majority of websites had been recognized inside Higher Sydney, Chappel stated a “small quantity” had been uncovered elsewhere in NSW, together with the Nowra Bridge venture, on the state’s south coast.
A number of suppliers have been investigated, he stated, however declined to reveal additional particulars.