The Hazards Campaign supports the report published today, Friday 16th October, by the all-party parliamentary group on occupational safety and health calling for the safe removal of all asbestos in Britain as an answer to the asbestos crisis.
Hilda Palmer, acting chair of the Hazards Campaign said:
“Asbestos is not a problem of the past, but a very real and present risk to many workers. There are still millions of tonnes in about half a million workplaces and public buildings – schools, hospitals- across the UK.
Some of it in a poor state, poorly managed and shedding microscopic asbestos fibres into the air that people then breathe.
All types of asbestos are carcinogenic and exposure to asbestos at work continues to cause over 5,000 deaths every year from mesothelioma and lung cancer.
Over 15 years after the use of asbestos was banned, hundreds of thousands of workers, and children in schools and other public buildings, are still at risk of exposure every day."
Labour's Ian Lavery MP and chair of the all-party group said;
“There is far too much complacency about the asbestos which we can still find in hundreds of thousands of workplaces as well as a majority of schools where children face exposure to this killer dust.
We believe that the Government needs to start now on developing a programme to ensure that asbestos is safely removed from every workplace and public place so that we can end, once and for all this dreadful legacy which has killed so many people, and will continue to kill until asbestos is eradicated.”
Hilda continued saying:
“The Hazards Campaign wholeheartedly supports and endorses the proposal from the all-party group for the safe removal and disposal of asbestos from all workplaces and public buildings.
Beginning the removal of the carcinogenic hazard of asbestos from our buildings now, is the only way of ensuring the protection of future generations from the risk of a known and preventable cause of death.
“Failure of government to act now will be knowingly condemning future generations to death.”
The report – The asbestos crisis: Why Britain needs an eradication law – is available to download from the Unionsafety E-Library Database using the keyword 'Asbestos' here
Source: Hazards Campaign
