Asbestos/chemical risk hangs over cement works plan

Bob Briton

The Adelaide Brighton Cement (ABC) plant in the portside suburb 
of Birkenhead has been operating since 1914. It currently employs 
about 190 workers and produces 1,200,000 tonnes of clinker and 
1,000,000 tonnes of cement per annum. Over the years, residents 
on Adelaide's Le Fevre Peninsula have lived with the eyesore of 
the giant plant, the noise and disruption of truck and rail 
transport and the occasional showering of dust, to come to a 
grudging acceptance of its existence. However, plans announced 
late last year by ABC are set to further test the patience of 
residents and workers alike.

ABC is planning to burn demolition waste wood in its cement kiln 
as a supplement to the current natural gas. New facilities for 
handling the fuel will operate seven days a week, 365 days a year 
and involve 60 truck movements a day. A 21-metre high building 
will house a feed elevating system for the waste woodchips. A new 
entry road to the plant will be required.

ABC and recyclers ResourceCo are keen to promote the "green" 
credentials of their Alternative Fuels Company joint venture that 
will provide the waste wood. They point out that it will reduce 
ABC's reliance on fossil fuels and prevent upwards of 100,000 
tonnes of waste wood a year going to landfill. However, others 
including the CFMEU (the main building union involved) are 
advising caution. The union wants the development declared a 
major project so that full environmental assessments, public 
health impact tests and community consultations are done.

The union's major concern is that asbestos fibres that remain 
attached to the timber of incorrectly demolished homes will pose 
a threat to workers and the community at every stage of the 
process -- during transit, chipping, the stoking of the calciner 
and emissions entering the atmosphere. CFMEU Assistant State 
Secretary Dave Kirner describes the problem this way:

"Asbestos is part and parcel of the demolition industry and it is 
known that not all houses are demolished according to safe 
standards. Trucks roll into ResourceCo without asbestos sorted 
out and we are told that they use video cameras to check the 
loads and then have to sort the asbestos out on site rather than 
require that all demolition loads are correctly demolished."

The CFMEU wrote to Local Federal MP Rod Sawford who indicated 
concern at the use of contaminated timber. SA Industrial 
Relations Minister Michael Wright dispatched three inspectors to 
investigate the issues after contact from the union.

Asbestos risks

However, not all official responses have been so helpful. It 
appears that the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has taken 
a position that the burning of the woodchips poses no greater 
threat than the burning of natural gas and that the CFMEU should 
provide the evidence of the asbestos risks of the demolition 
timber.

While the project has yet to be cleared by the Development 
Assessment Commission, a massive shed is currently being built in 
nearby Wingfield for the production of the "alternative fuel" for 
the cement works. ABC and ResourceCo are clearly very confident 
that the various administrative hurdles will be cleared.

Another major hazard identified by the CFMEU is the burning of 
timber treated with copper chrome arsenate (CCA). The treatment 
has been banned in Germany since the 1970s and the use of timbers 
for decking and children's equipment has been banned in the US 
since 2003. In 1988, the EPA in the US required that workers who 
come into regular contact with CCA wear protective clothing and 
respirators.

Timbers treated with CCA are extremely common in Australia. The 
process took over from the even more hazardous preservatives 
pentachlorphenal and creosote. Copper and arsenic are added to 
wood as fungicides and insecticides. Chrome is used mainly as a 
fixing agent to bond the other chemicals to the wood.

Arsenic & chromium

Arsenic and chromium are human carcinogens and mutagens. High or 
repeated exposure can cause cancer, foetal toxicity and birth 
defects, neurotoxicity including paralysis, warty skin growths, 
liver and kidney failure. Unfortunately, the thoroughness of the 
fixing varies considerably and the leaching of the chemicals from 
the timber remains a threat. A US study has shown that between 20 
and 50 per cent of the toxins can leach out of the wood 
presenting a serious hazard to workers handling the product and 
children using equipment constructed from it. A further threat is 
presented to individuals who saw or sand the timber.

In 2000, the UK's Department of Environment, Food and Rural 
Affairs produced a waste strategy for England and Wales. In it 
the authority recommended the use of waste timbers for energy 
recovery with two notable exceptions. Mixed waste contaminated 
with asbestos should not be used. Another "special waste" 
warranting close tracking and care is timber treated with CCA.

The Strategy lays down that CCA treated timber should not be 
incinerated under any circumstances because of the dangers to the 
community of chemicals released into the atmosphere. Like 
asbestos, its disposal has created a dilemma. Landfill is, for 
the time being, the only practical way to deal with asbestos 
waste. However, the disposal of CCA treated timber in landfill 
may contaminate groundwater. The US state of Minnesota has 
stopped taking CCA treated scraps at its landfill facilities for 
this very reason.

Clearly, there has to be a more extensive investigation of how to 
deal with the risks associated with the disposal of CCA treated 
timber. It is not the time to be rushing headlong into a scheme 
like the "alternative fuel" at ABC's plant that proposes to keep 
the hazardous materials out of its processes by a system of 
"sampling".

The people of the industrialised Port Adelaide and Peninsula area 
deserve the utmost consideration when it comes to potential 
hazards. Recent figures from the state cancer registry show that 
some local postcodes (like Osborne) have DOUBLE the state average 
rate of lung cancer. This alarming situation has arisen despite 
the fact that the prevalence of smoking is only three per cent 
higher than average. It is time to be removing risks from this 
long-suffering community, not adding to them.