Regulations 21, 22 and 25, 26 of the Health and Safety at Work (Asbestos) Regulations 2016 state:
(a) that all asbestos that is likely to be disturbed by the demolition or refurbishment is identified; and
(b) so far as is reasonably practicable, that the asbestos is removed before the demolition or refurbishment is commenced.
Failure to comply with these regulations can attract fines for an individual of a $10,000 fine or for any other person/entity, $50,000.
You need an Asbestos Demolition/Refurbishment Survey which will identify any asbestos items that need to be removed prior to work commencing. From there, a Licensed Asbestos Removalist is engaged to remove all the identified asbestos.
Once the removal is complete, an independent Asbestos Assessor (such as LAANZ) will inspect the removal and if satisfactory, issue a clearance certificate.
Then demolition or refurbishment work can commence.
What we are seeing is property owners failing to do the above and then when WorkSafe NZ arrive on site, the first thing they will ask for is an Asbestos Demolition/Refurbishment Survey. The failure to produce this report will shut the site down.
Equally, if demolition has commenced and there is no report, the site will be shut down and if any offending asbestos type materials are identified, a Prohibition Notice will be issued and the site shut down. Then we are in the area of a contaminated site and if not tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars for remediation, all for the sake of failing to get a few hundred-dollar asbestos demolition/refurbishment survey report.
Call LAANZ on 0800-522-6948 or email us at info@laanz.co.nz for more information. It will cost you something, but we will save you a lot.
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