Asbestos Contamination Safety Reform

Sign our petition below to call on the Minister for the Environment to implement urgent reform to prevent asbestos contamination from recycled landscaping products. 


Our community deserves access to vibrant, and safe parklands. Places where we can take our children and trust that they will be safe.

Shockingly, the recent opening of the Rozelle Parklands has resulted in significant safety concerns after bonded asbestos was discovered in the recycled landscaping materials used in the playground and garden beds throughout the parklands. 

This is unacceptable. The Rozelle Parklands contamination appears to be the tip of the iceberg, with a growing number of sites across the greater Sydney area also returning positive results for asbestos contamination. This demonstrates broader regulatory failure that must be addressed if we are to have confidence in the safety of our parklands and green spaces.

Will you please join me in calling on the Minister for the Environment to urgently reform safety regulations for recycled landscaping materials? 

Join me in calling on the new Minister for the Environment to: 

  • Introduce mandatory independent testing and record keeping for recycled mulch and landscaping products, to ensure asbestos and other contaminants are not present 
  • Adopt and implement the initial NSW EPA recommendations to revoke the existing regulations for recovered fines and introduce site-specific requirements that prevent recovered fines from being applied to land unless a facility has demonstrated they were safe and of high quality. 

These recommendations would ensure that both the recycled mulch and the recovered fine products were better regulated to help reduce the risk of asbestos contamination in the community. 

The Guardian uncovered documents proving that the NSW EPA has known about the contamination risk of recovered fines for over a decade and has so far failed to act. While this is a different material from the recycled mulch used in the Rozelle Parklands, it all points towards the need to improve safety regulations controlling how recycled landscaping material is used.  

Sign our petition to ensure better safety regulations to prevent asbestos contamination from recycled landscaping materials:

620 signatures

Will you sign?