Asbestos Awareness and Management in Construction

About this course.

Asbestos is the name for a group of naturally occurring fibrous silicate minerals that were once prized in construction because they are strong, cheap, fire-resistant, insulating and durable. Those same properties made them dangerous, because the materials release microscopic fibres when disturbed. In buildings, asbestos is usually described as either bonded (non-friable), where the fibres are held firmly in a matrix such as cement, or friable, where the material is loose or easily crumbled to powder by hand pressure. Because asbestos-containing materials are common in Australian buildings constructed or renovated before 1990, anyone working on older building fabric should assume asbestos may be present until it is shown otherwise. This module explains what asbestos is and where it turns up.

Asbestos was used in an enormous range of building products across much of the twentieth century. The reason is simple: it was an excellent, inexpensive additive that made products stronger, more fire-resistant and more durable. It was mixed into cement sheeting, moulded into pipes and fittings, sprayed for fire protection and insulation, woven into cloth and rope, and blended into a variety of coatings, adhesives and compounds. Because it was so widely and cheaply used, it found its way into buildings of every kind — houses, apartments, commercial premises, schools, hospitals and industrial buildings — and into many building elements at once. This ubiquity is exactly why asbestos remains such a widespread legacy hazard today.