By DANIEL TRAN and CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
RESIDENTS are knowingly dumping asbestos on their front lawns in the hope it will be taken away during hard rubbish collection.
But a waste management company contracted to pick up the hard rubbish in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs says it won’t be tricked into doing people’s dirty work for them.
“Our guys have done an asbestos awareness course and so if there’s something that’s potentially got asbestos, they don’t pick it up,” WM Waste Management Services manager Michael Strickland said.
While some residents were genuinely unsure whether their rubbish had the deadly material in it, Mr Strickland said a number knew what they were putting onto their front lawns.
“There’s definitely some people who have asbestos they want to get rid of. It’s not just asbestos. There’s quite a few things people put out even though they know we’re not supposed to pick it up.”
In most cases in Victoria, asbestos can only be removed by a licensed removalist. It can be removed without a licence only in a small number of cases, where the area containing the deadly fibre is not more than 10 square metres and the operation takes less than an hour over the course of seven days.
Brian Gavranic, manager of Dandenong asbestos removalist Asbestos Safe, said there was a widespread lack of awareness of asbestos hazards. He said he often received emergency calls from home renovators who “just rip into it without knowing”.
“There are plenty of tradesmen who are dodgy operators who don’t say anything about it.”
He said homes or sheds built before the 1980s were a high danger, most particularly in bathrooms, behind floors, ceilings and walls around the shower.
