Audit intensifies for unsafe asbestos removalists

Licensed asbestos removalists with poor practice records are being targeted by a Workplace Health and Safety Queensland audit.

Under the intensified scrutiny, removalists with a history of repeated poor practices are being comprehensively assessed by a team of specialist inspectors.

This will then determine whether their licence will be kept (and under what condition), suspended or cancelled. Already this year, one operator has had its licence cancelled for:

• failing to ensure that exposure of a person at the workplace to airborne asbestos is eliminated so far as is reasonably practicable;
• failing to give the regulator written notice about the emergency asbestos removal immediately after the person becomes aware of the emergency and before the demolition is commenced;
• failing as an asbestos removalist to dispose of asbestos waste and contaminated personal protective equipment;
• failing as a person conducting a business or undertaking for which asbestos-related work is carried out to dispose of asbestos waste and contaminated personal protective equipment.

For more information on asbestos removal practices, visit www.asbestos.qld.gov.au.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Kim Britten