Key PointsSydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras organisers cancelled the Fair Day event after asbestos was found at the site.There have been a string of similar discoveries of asbestos in Sydney over the past six weeks.The City of Sydney is now testing another 32 parks where it believes contaminated mulch may have been used.
The discovery of potentially dangerous asbestos at a central Sydney park has forced organisers of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to cancel the festival’s Fair Day event this Sunday.
A string of similar discoveries across Sydney in recent weeks has alarmed authorities.
More than 70,000 people were expected to attend the festival at Camperdown’s Victoria Park, before investigations by the City of Sydney on Monday evening found mulch containing bonded asbestos at multiple locations around the site.
Bonded or “non-friable” asbestos refers to asbestos that is present in relatively small quantities inside solid materials such as cement- or resin-based products.
These products are typically considered low-risk, but when damaged or badly weathered the asbestos can become friable, or easily crumbled, which can release dangerous asbestos fibres into the air.
“It breaks our heart to see this Sunday not go ahead, but given the safety concerns, we must put our communities’ well-being first,” Mardi Gras chief executive Gil Beckwith said.
“This cancellation is a setback — however, it presents us with an opportunity to unite and support one another more strongly.”
The contaminated mulch was discovered after the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) found a link to a known supplier in the supply chain of one of City of Sydney’s contractors.
Friable asbestos was also found in another central Sydney park, the latest in a string of detections across the city since bonded asbestos was uncovered at Rozelle Parklands in Sydney’s inner west on 2 January.
More than 100 sites across Sydney have since been tested, leading to at least 13 positive results for bonded asbestos.
The City of Sydney will now test another 32 parks where it believes a contaminated mulch product may have been used, while an EPA probe involving 120 investigators works to trace the supply of mulch.
Greenlife Resource Recovery, the supplier linked to most of the compromised sites across Sydney, insisted that its testing showed mulch stockpiled at its facility was free of asbestos contamination, and said it was confident the material was also clean when delivered to contractors for landscaping.
“The company has no visibility of, and does not control, how its mulch is used on a site once delivered,” it said in a statement.
The company has also launched an appeal against a prevention notice issued by the EPA, and engaged environmental law specialist Ross Fox, who said the company was “at risk of being made a scapegoat for failures in a complex supply chain for construction and landscaping projects”.
NSW EPA chief executive Tony Chappel said the whole supply chain was under scrutiny, “but we are talking about very small quantities that appear to have managed to find their way into the process”.
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