# Forum Home Renovation Asbestos  Illegal asbestos dumping

## Marc

I take my dog for a walk through a nearby reserve. 
A cement bag and a 20L bucket filled with what appeared to be building rubbish was dumped next to the creek. A new construction site over the fence along the creek was a bit of a coincidence, but i took no notice. They dump shopping trolleys, bicycles and anything else, why not a bit of rubbish.
The next day the local fauna decided to check the content and spilled it on the ground. I saw it the next day. Lots of neatly stacked asbestos bits, the one with the dimples in the back.
Called the council and they picked it up two days later. 
Illegal dumping is at epidemic proportions. Only free tipping fees will stop this madness. In fact I think there should be a free removal service, funded by the federal government, the same government that looked the other way when it was marketed.

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## sol381

Agree.. up here we get dump vouchers in our rates notice..maybe other cities do too..we can dump pretty much anything within reason for free.. Asbestos and other dangerous goods are pretty expensive to dump.,even asbestos skip bins are about 3 rimes the price of normal bins... should be free or at least the same price as regular rubbish to ensure it does get disposed of properly and not in marcs backyard.

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## pharmaboy2

Agree Marc,  I mountain bike a lot, and the dumping in the bush is crazy, and the main motivator must surely be the $200 a tonne dumping cost (and more depending). 
the guy with the 10t tipper, can go for a drive in the middle of the night down a dirt road and just empty the contents, do a fake dump receipt on the computer (very easy to do), and he has a $2k bonus for a one hour drive, and it happens - it’s very difficult to get council to clean it up - when I say difficult, I mean impossible

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## toooldforthis

> ...Only free tipping fees will stop this madness. ....

   :What he said:

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## craka

Agreed.   Why the government just doesn't pay the cost for asbestos disposal is madness to me.  They will avoid more unsuspecting people being exposed, therefore minimising the amount of people and the cost of them being hospitalised in respite and palative care down the track. Which I'd imagine would be exponentially more expensive.

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## chrisp

I generally agree with your comment Marc, but I’d question whether the government should foot the bill. The asbestos industry fought hard to deny any responsibility or liability for the impact of asbestos so maybe they should be wearing the clean up costs.

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## phild01

:Arrow Up:  +1

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## pharmaboy2

> I generally agree with your comment Marc, but I’d question whether the government should foot the bill. The asbestos industry fought hard to deny any responsibility or liability for the impact of asbestos so maybe they should be wearing the clean up costs.

  Except the govt has created the high dumping cost.  For starters, there is a $150 per tonne levy that goes straight to the state govt general revenue - it’s supoosed to be some kind of incentive to recycle, then facilities can charge whatever handling fee they choose on top. 
2 if say JH could pay for dumping, why not all clean up including removal from site? 
3 if JH can absorb those costs, then today’s shareholders (including retirement funds) pay for it with losses - given they are unlikely to have been the owners in the 70’s, why is it their responsibility to bear the cost? 
4 If JH can’t absorb it within profit, then they will close down and sell off assets - why do the employees today deserve to pay that price? 
things aren’t always that simple - there are always effects beyond the obvious

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## chrisp

> Except the govt has created the high dumping cost.  For starters, there is a $150 per tonne levy that goes straight to the state govt general revenue - it’s supoosed to be some kind of incentive to recycle, then facilities can charge whatever handling fee they choose on top. 
> 2 if say JH could pay for dumping, why not all clean up including removal from site? 
> 3 if JH can absorb those costs, then today’s shareholders (including retirement funds) pay for it with losses - given they are unlikely to have been the owners in the 70’s, why is it their responsibility to bear the cost? 
> 4 If JH can’t absorb it within profit, then they will close down and sell off assets - why do the employees today deserve to pay that price? 
> things aren’t always that simple - there are always effects beyond the obvious

  It’s not always simple. But what you’re proposing sounds very much like a case of ‘capitalise the profits and socialise the losses’.  If the company knowingly sold a dangerous product, then I think that they should cover all the costs associated with it’s recall/removal. 
I do recall that a particular asbestos company fought tooth and nail to deny any liability with their product and even deceived shareholders about their victims compensation fund. 
I don’t think that companies that behave that way deserve the support of their shareholders nor support from government to clean up their mess.  
And as far as looking after employees - I hardly think that JH looked after it’s workers very well at all. Many would have been better off unemployed!

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## pharmaboy2

> It’s not always simple. But what you’re proposing sounds very much like a case of ‘capitalise the profits and socialise the losses’.  If the company knowingly sold a dangerous product, then I think that they should cover all the costs associated with it’s recall/removal. 
> I do recall that a particular asbestos company fought tooth and nail to deny any liability with their product and even deceived shareholders about their victims compensation fund. 
> I don’t think that companies that behave that way deserve the support of their shareholders nor support from government to clean up their mess.  
> And as far as looking after employees - I hardly think that JH looked after it’s workers very well at all. Many would have been better off unemployed!

  But you are still admonishing those now for deeds of the past. 
right now, part of the profits go towards the funding of those past employees, but set at a rate that the business could continue.  If they fail in order to fulfill your needs, those employees suffer, which just seems wrong to me - they paid a couple of hundred million this year - which is more than their profits btw, into a fund exclusively for righting previous wrongs. 
almost without a doubt, a cleanup cost would send the company bust, so no more payments into the employee fund - would be a boon to the remaining manufacturers though who don’t have to pay anything and would undoubtedly buy up JH assets, take their market share, but not have to pay anything 
i d9 support JAmes Hardie as a brand, because I happen to know that around half of profits actually go to those blokes, whereas BG just pay it back to thier owners 
edit, sorry, paid 136m into the fund, which is 35% of operating cashflow, CSR also pay into the same fund

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## Marc

Government knew it was dangerous and kept quiet for as long as they could, then turned around when all became too obvious.
It is politicians who should be in front of a jury. Those in charge of watching our back. The same that now pretend to have the high moral ground and treat the one trying to dispose of asbestos as a criminal and make him jump through hoops and pay accordingly, when in fact they should be crawling asking for forgiveness and taking the stuff off your house for free. That is what is not happening and it is disgusting that it is not.

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## Bedford

> Only free tipping fees will stop this madness.

  Here's a nice hole they are wanting to fill, https://www.domain.com.au/news/devel...=pos4&ref=pos1   

> The quarrys overburden  the leftover soil and rock matter after the  limestone was extracted  was kept on site and will be used to refill  the pit. 
>  Its literally putting back what came out, Mr Shifman said, so there are no environmental concerns.

  What a joke, he seems to forget they spent 137 years carting product off site, no way the overburden will replace that. 
You have to wonder what they will fill it with..............

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## phild01

They might end up with another Mexico city which was built on a reclaimed lake.  Now the buildings are falling in.

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## Bedford

It'll be fine, they've got engineers working on it  :Rolleyes:

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## Bros

> What a joke, he seems to forget they spent 137 years carting product off site, no way the overburden will replace that. 
> You have to wonder what they will fill it with..............

  Actually the overburden can but you wouldn't want to build on it as the original ground would have been solid the overburden occupies more volume out of the ground than it did in as it is not compacted.

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## phild01

They are filling in our quarry right now, it had already been determined that you could not build on it.

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## pharmaboy2

Can just see the engineers footing design now, pier through to undisturbed ground every 1000, minimum insertion into undisturbed ground 600mm. Lol 
will need oil workers to do that.  :Wink:

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## chrisp

> You have to wonder what they will fill it with..............

  It’d make a very lovely underground car parking complex for the new residential estate!   :Smilie:

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## Marc

After all there is a waterfront vacant lot in north Sydney that is contaminated with radiation and different government have been looking the other way for ... what is it? 50 years?

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## METRIX

> , and the dumping in the bush is crazy, and the main motivator must surely be the $200 a tonne dumping cost (and more depending).

  Current dumping rates for today (tomorrow it will have gone up again), is as follows, and you wonder why these scumbags dump stuff in the bush. 
$360 for mixed waste
$745 Asbestos 
Now here is the ridiculous ones
Sorted Glass bottles, Aluminium cans and recyclable plastic $150 !!!!!! ummm hello tip you sell these onto be recycled

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## plum

My old neighbour was involved in dumping mustard gas in 44 gallon drums into Botany Bay at the end of W.W.2. I wonder how that's going?

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## phild01

> My old neighbour was involved in dumping mustard gas in 44 gallon drums into Botany Bay at the end of W.W.2. I wonder how that's going?

  Thanks for that, that bay was my backyard as a kid :Cry:

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## plum

> Thanks for that, that bay was my backyard as a kid

  Most likely hadn't started leaching out then....

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## MorganGT

> They are filling in our quarry right now, it had already been determined that you could not build on it.

  The quarry down the road from where I grew up sat abandoned for years before some bright spark decided the area was now expensive enough to terrace the sides of the pit, build an access road, landscape it with a lake at the bottom and a big pump to remove the stormwater (and presumably one for sewage as well) then sell the plots. Weeks after the firsts lots were sold and building started, there was a lot of rain that caused all the pretty landscaping on the pit sides to slip down and deluge all the buildings. Somehow they found the money to clean it all up, and somehow sell the remaining lots  to people who for some reason thought it a good idea to live at the bottom of a deep hole in the ground that might fill up with water if the pump fails.   
...and just down the road from where I live now, the old Epping tip site, which closed since it wasn't appropriate to have a tip next to a hospital (clever of them to build a hospital next to an existing tip, wasn't it?) is about to be redeveloped for housing and commercial use. How they plan to build anything there that won't collapse into the ground is a bit of a mystery.

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## Bedford

> Actually the overburden can but you wouldn't want to build on it as the original ground would have been solid the overburden occupies more volume out of the ground than it did in as it is not compacted.

  I wonder if they will test the overburden for lead, we used to shoot clay targets there as a kids!

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## commodorenut

Up the road from my place is an old tip site that was active until the 1960s.  It was filled in during the early 70s, and a high school was built next door in the mid 70s.  Houses then came along within a few years, but nothing has ever been built over where the old pit was - it's playing fields & reserve.  I guess some councils were smarter back then.....

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## Bros

> Up the road from my place is an old tip site that was active until the 1960s.  It was filled in during the early 70s, and a high school was built next door in the mid 70s.  Houses then came along within a few years, but nothing has ever been built over where the old pit was - it's playing fields & reserve.  I guess some councils were smarter back then.....

   I remember as a kid there was a dump in Townsville that was closed and another open and now that area has not been built on and that was over 50yrs ago.
Most exhausted dumps are topped with earth and turned into parks.

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## Bros

> I wonder if they will test the overburden for lead, we used to shoot clay targets there as a kids!

  I doubt they would bother with those things if there was a dollar to be made.

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