By Sherryn Groch
Victoria’s environmental regulator has ordered a local council to hand over records and bring in experts to conduct widespread testing in its parks after the discovery of asbestos in mulch at several reserves in Melbourne this month.
On Sunday afternoon, the Environment Protection Authority said it had slapped two remedial notices on Hobsons Bay City Council, which runs four parks in Altona North and Spotswood where the cancer-causing material was discovered last week, “ordering proactive inspections of more parks and gardens in the area”.
The EPA said it had already inspected 59 mulch producers in Victoria over the past five weeks without finding asbestos.Credit: Joe Armao
The council must commission a hygienist to inspect all council-managed parks and gardens that have received mulch in the past 18 months, a spokesman for the regulator said. Work will start on Monday and must be completed by May 10. Daily updates are required.
“EPA requires Hobsons Bay City Council to investigate the nature and extent of any harm or risk of harm to human health arising from asbestos in reserves or land areas managed by the council,” he said. The agency will also “review council’s procedures regarding the sourcing of mulch, safety and quality checks, replacement and maintenance”.
The council has until April 22 to hand over a list of suppliers used to source mulch by the council, including all its contractors and subcontractors since July 2021, as well as all related internal records within council from the same period.
Experts say a crackdown is needed to regulate contaminants in mulch and soil processed at recycling plants and to enforce the safe disposal of asbestos, following widespread discoveries in parks across NSW earlier this year.
Also on Sunday, the EPA revealed it was testing for potential asbestos at another park in Altona North – the dog park PA Burns Reserve – after a report from the community.
“New mulch has been spread around the toilet blocks and is contaminated with building waste,” the EPA said. “Hobsons Bay City Council has not provided information to EPA about the source of the mulch at this time [but] EPA officers took six samples of potential asbestos for prioritised testing.“
Asbestos has also been found in nearby parks Crofts Reserve, PJ Lynch Reserve and GJ Hosken Reserve, which have since been fenced off. Over Easter, it was discovered at Donald McLean Reserve in Spotswood.
Late on Sunday, Hobsons Bay City Council said it was continuing to co-operate with the EPA. “Where the council confirms the presence of asbestos in its public parks and reserves, it will act quickly so that the affected areas remain safe,” it said in a statement.
Investigators are also examining asbestos found in soil, not mulch, at Hosken Reserve in Coburg North, and testing large pieces of potential asbestos found at Shore Reserve in Pascoe Vale South after inspections on Saturday. Both parks fall under Merri-bek Council’s jurisdiction.
The EPA believes some of the asbestos has been illegally dumped, but said the mulch at Hosken Reserve was thought to have been supplied in 2017, though Hobsons Bay City Council had not yet confirmed who the supplier was as it continued to search its records.
Expert Jeff Angel, director of the Total Environment Centre, said the problem of asbestos in mulch was “unlikely to be just a few bad apples” in the supply chain. “This is a systemic problem for Australia,” he said.
Asbestos can get into mulch and soil made from sites where old buildings containing it are knocked down. But, often, contamination happens at recycling plants, Angel said, where testing for contaminants “can be lax”.
“There’s always a battle between wanting to turn this stuff away from landfill and into mulch and soil, and wanting to make sure it’s not polluted with asbestos, heavy metals, other nasties,” he said. “You meet your recycling goals, but there can be a dangerous trade-off.”
Bonded asbestos is considered low risk, the EPA said, “unless it is damaged or badly weathered, resulting in asbestos fibres being released into the air”.
Angel warned all asbestos degraded and so posed dangers. “The public are really sensitive to this,” he said, backing calls from the Victorian Liberals for a taskforce and more widespread pre-emptive testing at public spaces around the state.
The EPA said it had already inspected 59 mulch producers in Victoria over the past five weeks without finding asbestos, in light of the recent NSW scandal, adding “risk controls were generally of a high standard” though “six sites were required to make improvements”.
In Sydney, the discovery of asbestos-contaminated mulch at 75 sites, including seven schools, triggered NSW EPA’s biggest probe ever and likely tougher laws.
When asked on Sunday if Victoria needed to follow NSW in creating a taskforce to investigate asbestos, Premier Jacinta Allan said the EPA already had strong powers.
“We need to let them do their job,” she said.
David Clarke, who heads the Municipal Association of Victoria, which represents local councils, said that in light of asbestos discoveries in NSW and now Victoria, it might be time for a crackdown on mulch supply, which is largely unregulated.
But at the very least, a testing regime was needed, he said. “We would think it wise if councils get the supplies they have in storage tested quickly.”
The state opposition has accused the government of dropping the ball on regulation, saying it was warned last year that agencies were no longer collecting information to stop illegal asbestos dumping.
A key government program collapsed earlier this year.
This masthead revealed in January that a plan to expand the number of safe landfill sites, led by Sustainability Victoria, lost funding beyond March 2024.
Moira Deeming, the upper house MP for the Western Metropolitan Region, has demanded mandatory independent testing of materials created in recycling facilities.
The Australian Services Union, which represents council staff and contractors who worked at the Spotswood park, has also raised concerns that workers may have been exposed to the potentially deadly substance, querying what training and protections had been put in place.
A spokesman for Boroondara Council in Melbourne’s inner east said no asbestos had been found in any mulch in the parks it runs as it only uses wood sourced from local trees during maintenance to create mulch, rather than relying on external suppliers, and so this wouldn’t contain building-site contaminants.
Local Government Minister Melissa Horne, who is also the local member for the area, said on Saturday that the council had been “working hand in glove” with the EPA and that advice provided to her was that the risk to the public was low.
With Rachael Dexter and Broede Carmody