I’m getting my old garage block removed which has a cement board roof containing asbestos.
I’ve got a builder/contractor who is taking this down and removing it to a certified waste disposal centre.
My question is, am I being paranoid about the danger of residual asbestos dust in the air or deposited around the garden from any broken panels?
Thanks
If the contractor is certified to remove asbestos he should be doing in a manner that will not get it on the ground near your garden and should remove any residual dust. He should be testing before removing any barriers.
Asbestos fibers are bad of they’re dry and finely divided enough to float in the air and enter your lungs. If they settle on plants or the ground, a little sprinkling to damp them down will basically remove the danger.
Your builder shouldn’t be breaking the panels when he removes them. Asbestos incorporated into panels as you’ve got is relatively inert and can safely co-exist with people with no risk indefinitely. I’m looking out the window at some asbestos paneling that’s been at my house for 40+ years.
The size of fibers that can enter your lungs and cause the damage to them are invisible to the naked eye. Fibres large enough to be ‘seen’ are generally freely respirable. Fortunately this also means the dangerous fibres tend to freely float once disturbed and natural air movement will send any floating fibres into the surrounding airshed. This will dilute the fiber count enormously and reduce the hazard to standard background levels pretty quickly. Basic precautions by the contractor will ensure minimal release of fibers and what is released should dilute quickly.
Water as a suppressant does act effectively to prevent fibers becoming airborne, but doesn’t actually solve the problem as once they dry out they will become airborne again once disturbed.
If you are worried, just watch the builder and ensure he isn’t snapping any sheets, he is wearing appropriate protective equipment (disposable overalls and half face respirator) and he is double wrapping in builders film/plastic any pieces removed. If they do need to be cut for any reason he should be using a wet mechanical shear to discourage fiber liberation. If he behaves as described he is likely not a cowboy and should leave a safe environment behind.
You should reconsider giving advice.
I always do. When (wet) asbestos finds its way to grass or bare ground, there’s practically no way it could float back up and find its way to your lungs. #4 mentioned the danger of simply damping it with no other qualification. 
As noted, a licensed asbestos removal guy knows that this is a danger, and will screen out the area with plastic, etc. and capture the airborne fibers if necessary.
Is your guy a licensed asbestos removal guy? If so, he’ll handle it. If he isn’t, what the fuck are you doing? Don’t let some loser remove anything you know has asbestos. It’s dangerous and illegal. It’s a threat to your health, and it could threaten your resale value if someone found out you spewed fibers all over the home (they’ll get tracked around, travel through the air ducts, etc) and maybe worse.
It’s possible there’s no worry about fibers in the air. If so, a licensed asbestos guy will know that, so if you have one, relax. If not, get one immediately, if only to advise you on whether it’s safe to remove them the way you plan to do it.
Depending on jurisdiction, achieving a license to remove asbestos might be a simple 3 day course that a guy does and then promptly forgets / ignores, so even having a guy rock up and present a little card with a qualification number on it doesn’t guarantee results. Notwithstanding this, it should still be the minimum barrier to entry for considering someones qualification for the job! But it doesn’t *guarantee *nothing in itself.
So best bet is to speak to them and see what their plan is and if it seems sensible and includes some of the general pointers from advice given above, it probably is.
YMMV, but I’ll also go off-record and opine that the danger presented to the general consumer from asbestos exposure is generally quite over stated. Our historical exposure was unbelievably high and ended up costing us unbelievable amounts of health damage and monetary loss. As a result, the fear factor of exposure levels today is greater than it needs to be. So take it seriously, but don’t give in to the hype. This is my opinion only.
The fiber concentrations that one needs to be exposed to are actually quite high over a long period of time before any significant risk to your health presents. Some people have randomly shown to be particularly at-risk from fiber exposure but this is pretty rare as far as I know (no cite, personal experience from previous training this area).
As long as the guy isn’t a cowboy and follows basic best practice and doesn’t snap and crack boards all over your yard, leaving a toxic mess, I would be comfortable the risk to yourself and your family is extraordinarily small to non-existent.
My experience with this substance comes from working on a minesite where we had very high concentrations of blue and white asbestos and the associated training and operational practices that came along with it.
Aside from working in a chromite mine where you have occasional serpentinite veins, I grew up in a government housing project that were single-storey duplex structures roofed with the cemented asbestos. Built in the 50’s, a lot of them are still inhabited. The material is very sturdy and heat-proof. It’s highly resistant to cracking, unlike clay tiles, and many houses dispensed with ceilings and exposed the underside to the occupants. No big cases of asbestosis that I heard so far (or maybe they just don’t know what it’s called.)
Not really relevant - its the removal of the product that presents the exposure risk. Sitting pretty in place its basically inert as everyone knows (until a hail storm comes along and punches holes all through it).
Thanks for the replies.
The contractor is not a specialist in asbestos removal, though he does this kind of work quite often. To be fair the local council advised me to remove the panels myself, wrap them and take them to the waste disposal site.
He won’t be smashing panels up, however it’s possible some will break since they are roof panels.
The advice I’ve found ranges from - evacuate the site and pay a professional, commercial disposal company to remove it (at a cost of around £1,200/$1,800) through to DIY and just wear a mask.
I’m erring on the side of ensuring he doesn’t break any panels, and bags them on site.
Smokers are specifically more at risk, due to damaged removal mechanisms for dust in the lungs.
In Aus, since almost every man, and effectively all the asbestos workers, were smokers, this didn’t amount to any variation in population risk.
Mmm yep I have heard that. I was more referring to a genetic or (otherwise non lifestyle related) predilection towards asbestosis and/or mesothilioma.
On a side note I was in Wittenoom just the other week. Amazing place, a real last place in the world vibe. A rare untouched pocket.
Asbestos paranoia and scaremongering runs rampant even on SD.
Nobody has ever contracted mesothelioma as a result of random inhalation of a few asbestos fibers.
It requires really prolonged exposure to the fibers for any ill-effects to develop.
The idea that a few asbestos fibers from a breaking roof panel will land on the ground, become wet, then dry out, become airborne and cause mesothelioma in some unfortunate individual is so bizarre as to defy description.
30 years ago, I was on a construction site with asbestos.(renovations inside an old building).
Inside a small, windowless room, an ancient boiler and piping had to be removed. The workers used power saws and started cutting everything in sight. A massive cloud of dust was created, which we all breathed, and choked on, all day long.
The cutting included the insulation around the boiler–which turned out to be asbestos.
Whatever amount of fibers that might remain in the OP’s open-air garden will be nothing compared to the dense cloud of stuff filling the air in that room all day long.
I’m still alive.
It’s not scaremongering to say that one shouildn’t just trust advice on asbestos from a non-qualified contractor - or random strangers on the internet.
Are you invoking the “I did something really risky and didn’t die (yet), therefore it’s not risky” logic?
No, I’m just telling an anecdote. You decide whether it’s relevant.
IANAAE (I am not an asbestos expert)
I don’t get the impression that he meant it that way. It is worth noting that the risk of developing asbestos related disorders is extremely low for casual exposure. Also worth noting, if you need asbestos removed, a qualified contractor is the way to make sure you won’t have any more than casual exposure.
It’s myths on the internet which spawn the asbestos paranoia in the first place … there are thousands of similar H&S myths abounding on the interweb … the advice that you need to wash your hands after handling lead in case you get lead poisoning is one that springs to mind … the idea some people have that you absorb toxins from having acrylic nails applied is another … people are just so predisposed to being scared …