Asbestos-related fines are set to double in New South Wales, with the state's environmental regulator to get stronger investigative powers to prosecute offenders. It comes amid growing asbestos detection across the nation.
Asbestos-related fines are set to double in New South Wales, with the state's environmental regulator to get stronger investigative powers to prosecute offenders.Asbestos-related fines are set to double in New South Wales, with the state's environmental regulator to get stronger investigative powers to prosecute offenders. It comes amid growing asbestos detection across the nation.
The state's Environment Protection Authority will be given more powers to prosecute individuals and companies who fail to dispose of asbestos correctly. "As we move to a recycling based economy we need to make sure that there's no contamination in those products, so having that ability would be a major step as with the ability orders across multiple sites where there's a single source of contamination because that's not currently in the legislation. So there's some additional investigation powers and tools. New powers for land managers like national parks and local council to deal with illegal dumping.
"We have the largest investigation in the EPAs history still underway. We are now at 78 positive detection for asbestos contaminated mulch in Sydney. All of these sites are contained and being remediated. We've done over 2000 tests, so the New South Wales government's put a major effort into tracing and tracking this material down and now remediating it in partnership with other landowners.
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