“What’s alarming is building rubble in a park. Building rubble’s got no business being in mulch or in any park,” Duncan Pendrigh, Director of Regulatory Services, told ABC Radio Melbourne’s Breakfast program on Thursday.
Donald McLean reserve in Spotswood taped off on Wednesday after asbestos-containing material was found.
“That’s a big issue. The asbestos will be bound in cement sheets that have been broken up into little pieces as part of the building rubble. So that doesn’t pose an immediate risk.
“So people should be alert, not alarmed in regards to the asbestos because asbestos is dangerous if you’re breathing dust with asbestos fibres in it, and there’s no way that that material can become a dust immediately. [But] handling it is not a good thing to do.”
Pendrigh said the EPA was now investigating the source of the mulch.
“There are two possibilities. One is someone’s dumped a trailer load of mulch against the tree and it’s got mixed up into the mulch, or the mulch producer’s got some contamination in a batch of mulch,” he said.
“We will investigate both those possibilities.”
The park opened in April last year after receiving funding through the West Gate Tunnel Project, as part of a state government initiative to improve parks and sporting facilities in the inner west.
A spokesperson for the West Gate Tunnel Project said the council oversaw construction of the playground and was leading the asbestos contamination investigation.
Shadow Environment Minister James Newbury has called for the Allan government to explain how contaminated product came to be at the reserve and to guarantee that other parks are safe.
“Every parent will be deeply concerned about asbestos being found near where children play,” Newbury said. “Asbestos is seriously dangerous and it’s just not good enough that the substance was there.”
Since Sydney’s asbestos crisis started in early January, mulch containing asbestos has been found at 75 sites, including seven schools, a supermarket, hospitals and numerous public parks. The initial investigation was launched after a child took home bonded asbestos from a playground in the city’s inner west.
The crisis quickly spread north. The Queensland Environment Department detected easily crumbled asbestos in February. The discovery sparked concerns that dozens of locations, including schools, had received asbestos-contaminated mulch.
Separately on Wednesday, the EPA warned Victorians to avoid mulch advertised on Facebook marketplace and Gumtree, after asbestos was found in free mulch given to a resident in Melbourne’s east.
Last week Upwey High School and Upwey Primary School parents were told asbestos may have been found on a freshly redeveloped school oval in Melbourne’s outer east after state railway corporation VicTrack used the site as a temporary car park.
Asbestos is the name given to a group of naturally occurring minerals found in rock formations. It was widely used across the building industry in Australia before it was banned in 2003 due to its carcinogenic properties.
With Alex Crowe
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