Asbestos is still found in one in three Australian homes and DIY renovations are leading to exposure among women and children

Roughly 4000 Australians are dying of asbestos-related diseases each year — twice as many lives lost in the nation’s annual road toll.

But exposure to asbestos among women and children is on the rise, due to DIY home renovations in houses and apartments containing the deadly material.

Asbestos exposure can lead to malignant mesothelioma — a cancer of the lung, chest wall, and abdomen — which is incurable, and causes breathing difficulties and a dry cough for sufferers.

It can take between 20 and 60 years to occur in people who have been exposed to the material, which was only banned in 2003, and between 700 and 800 people continue to be diagnosed each year.

“In the past, Australians diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma has primarily been men exposed to asbestos through work-related exposure,” the Asbestos Education Committee said on Monday, the first day of Asbestos Awareness Week.

“Today there is a growing body of evidence that more people, including women, are being diagnosed through non-occupational exposure.”

Almost a quarter of all respondents to a 2013 survey about asbestos exposure during home renovations in NSW, said their children had been exposed to the fibres.

Another 39 per cent said their partners had been exposed during the refurbishments.

Most of those exposure incidents involved fibro sheets, but renovation queen and Asbestos Awareness Ambassador Cherie Barber said asbestos “was also used extensively in the manufacture of more than 3000 building and decorator products”.

“Asbestos could be under floor coverings including carpets, linoleum and vinyl tiles, behind wall and floor tiles, in cement floors, internal and external walls, ceilings and ceiling space (insulation), eaves, roofs, around hot water pipes, fences, home extensions, garages, outdoor toilets, backyard and farm structures, chook sheds and even dog kennels.

“It was used everywhere.”

Any Australian home built or renovated before 1990 “will contain asbestos in some form or another,” the committee said on Monday.

That is one in three homes, including brick, weatherboard and clad residences.

A majority exposed

In the latest Australian Mesothelioma Registry (AMR) Report published in 2023, 83 per cent of the 1305 survey respondents said it was “probable or possible” they had been exposed to asbestos fibres in non-work settings, primarily in homes.

Of those, 51 per cent said they had undertaken a major home renovation, and 38 per cent said they had lived in a house being renovated.

Another 20 per cent said they’d lived in the same home as someone who was exposed to asbestos at work and brought the fibres home in dust.

And 12 per cent said they had lived in a house made of fibro that was built between 1947 and 1987.

Barber, who lost her grandfather to an asbestos-related disease, said: “Although in some states homeowners are permitted to remove up to 10 sq m of asbestos-containing materials themselves, we strongly advise against it.”

Asbestos Education Committee chair Claire Collins added there was “no known safe level of exposure to asbestos fibres”.

“The only way to prevent asbestos-related deaths is to increase awareness of the risks of disturbing asbestos during home renovations, demolition or maintenance and providing education tools and information about asbestos locations and how to manage it safely.”