Interview with Greg Byrne from RB Asbestos.

 

1. What does your role day-to-day involved?
We are a company who carry out asbestos surveys principally. This involves surveying buildings and for me the most important part is helping people/ organisations to manage the asbestos which has been found on an asbestos survey.

 

I’ve been working in this area since 1988.

 

Years ago you would give people an asbestos survey and they would put it in a drawer and forget about it but it needs to be seen as the key to how you can protect people.

 

I am also involved in training, consultancy, management and also some marketing for the business.

 

2. Have you been exposed to asbestos?
Even with my experience I still make mistakes.

 

As an example, I once went to survey a large church. I asked about a room underneath the bells coming down from the bell tower. I was told that it was a room to help reduce the noise from the bells inside the church itself. I went in to have a look. I walked straight in there without any mask. As I shone my torch down onto the floor of the room, I noticed that it was completely full asbestos fibres. They were being used to reduce the noise.

 

A second example is when I was in Preston last year. It was a building right in the centre. There was a security guard on the front door. He let me in but he didn’t come in with me. I shone the torch in and it looked as if everything had been striped back to the shell. I walked in and as I looked down I realised that there was smashed asbestos boards all over the floor. I came straight back out. I asked the security guard if he knew what was happening in there. He said that he didn’t. I had to tell him to not let anybody else in at all and that it was illegal the way the asbestos was being removed.

 

I went to work in a council building a couple of years ago. I was working in a room where they told me that it was asbestos free. It had been cleared. When I was looking at one of the walls, I could see a big splodge of asbestos on the wall. I went straight back out the area and told them it was full of asbestos. They said it had been removed. I was told I had to speak to the woman from the council who was in charge. She again told me there was no asbestos there. I disagreed and took samples. 29 of the samples came back positive for asbestos.

 

This is another problem in places where asbestos has supposedly already been removed. From the mid-1980s onwards there was a real boom time to remove asbestos following the ban of asbestos in 1985. Local councils and other big employers such as hospitals and schools spent a lot of money on it. However the techniques for removing it then are different to now meaning that there is still a risk of asbestos, for example underneath new pipe lagging where the residue of the asbestos lagging remains in place.

 

The very first time I was exposed to asbestos was when I was a teenager. My neighbour gave me £5 to smash up his asbestos garage. I did it. I didn’t know any better.

 

I could give thousands of examples. The deliberate removal not in accordance with the regulations in a way is the most annoying but by far the bigger group is the inadvertent group.

 

As an example, I was working in Manchester last year. I was asked by a company to come and look at a building where removal work was already underway. This was in Central Manchester. It was a large listed building. I was asked to do an asbestos survey after the work had already started. They were ripping the building back to its shell. I agreed to go and have a look. There were seven or eight guys working in the building and I sent them out for 20 minutes or so whilst I had a look round. As I started looking, I noticed there was asbestos everywhere and a skip full of asbestos boards which had been taken out. I had to tell the guys not to go back in. They then asked me whether it was dangerous. I explained to them that it was. They seemed to be unaware of it. There was just a lack of training, knowledge and education. Those guys were then out of that building for months whilst the asbestos was removed properly.

 

4. How many buildings in the UK to think do not have an asbestos register?
Nobody knows the answer for sure. Anecdotally we think it’s about 80%. Out of those 80%, we estimate that 3 or 4% actually manage the asbestos correctly/ safely. This is a really small percentage.

 

Still many of the traditional industries such as plumbers, joiners and electricians but there is also in my view a new group who are likely to be at risk which is the communication guys. These are the ones who are installing new communication cables or upgrading existing ones in both commercial and domestic properties. They have a tendency to crash through things. They are disturbing dust and debris and going into places where no one’s been for years.

 

Even in domestic settings there can be issues. Even some of the big boys can get it wrong. For example the ones replacing boilers for free under a Government Scheme were not necessarily carrying out asbestos surveys in properties before doing so. This puts people at risk.

 

Refurbishment work – domestic and commercial because of a lack of knowledge.

 

Actually the construction and demolition industry take it seriously and are probably better than others but mistakes still happen and there are still operators that flout the law.

 

It is probably just not managed well enough because of a lack of education. As an example, I was giving training to high-level apprentices for the electricity board. These are smart kids. I asked them what do you think is likely to kill you when you’re working? They said an electrical shock. They thought that was the most likely. I asked them, how about driving to work? Again they thought that that was a possibility. I then asked them about asbestos. They had no idea about it. They had no concept of asbestos at all.

 

I often use an analogy of a landmine with a damaged fuse. A landmine when you step on it will go off. If one has a damaged fuse that it won’t necessarily go off straight away. It could go off later. This is like asbestos.

As another example, I went into a college/training centre to carry out an asbestos survey. I went into the areas where the plumbers were training. As I went into the stores, there were 30 to 40 asbestos gaskets ready to be used hung up on the wall.

 

I went to a local University/College where they did degree courses. About four years ago I was asked if I would speak to the final year students about asbestos. I said I’d be happy to do this for free. I started by asking the lecturers what they taught students. One of the lectures helpfully found the curriculum. He found within the file mention of asbestos. It said that they had to conform to the 1985 Regulations. They had of course missed about four sets of regulations out. I did the training for free to lecturers and then to the students and said I was happy to come back year after year and do it again for free. I haven’t been invited back once.

 

Until four years ago the law said that if you are likely to be exposed to asbestos at work you had to have awareness/ training annually. Three years ago this was changed from annually to ‘regular’. There was no other type of health and safety training that had to be given annually and for me to relax it by changing it to regular, its dropped of in importance and given it too much scope.

 

Training can be very mixed. There is face-to-face training and awareness and also online training available. Lots do the online training. In my view it is difficult to bring it to life with online training. Online training should be used as more of a stopgap. There should be a mix of online and face-to-face training. I certainly think it should be a legal requirement to have face-to-face training the first time.

 

Whenever I am giving training, I always try to stress to the person being trained that the only one who will protect them is them. No matter how careful an employer might be, mistakes still happen.

 

9. Have you given any training to the next generation who might be exposed to asbestos? How receptive are they?
Yes

 

It depends on the age and direction. If you go in to schools to speak to 14 and 15-year-olds they’re very disinterested. For example my 14-year-old daughter wears make-up. She buys Claire’s make-up. I told her about the news articles about asbestos in their make up and her response was that she doesn’t buy that product.

 

Older kids 16 to 21 tend to be more receptive but you have have to shape it based on evidence otherwise they switch off.

 

The older guys over 50 tend to be the most affected. For some of them their instant reaction is well I’m dead. I explain to them that they can still make choices, they can’t change the past but they can reduce the risks. They can stop themselves being exposed to asbestos going forward and for example they can stop smoking which is known to dramatically reduce the risk of lung cancer where asbestos may be a factor. The older guys often take a more paternalistic view as well with the younger ones and will discuss it with them.

 

All the legislation is in place. There’s also a police force in place but it’s too small and underfunded. The HSE needs support and money. They need a dedicated asbestos team.
We need formal education for everybody’s working life and everybody involved with asbestos.

We need a register of asbestos in buildings. This needs to start with something like as all asbestos in Government buildings and then move out from there. It’s about investment.

 

11. Could the HSE could take further/more action?
There is a need to enforce.

 

They do what they can with the resources they’ve got. There’s been a decrease in the number and size of them. They have been limited by the Conservative Government and they need to be reinvigorated. There needs to be more corporate responsibility at an individual level. The company goes and there is nobody to pay the fine. Directors should not be able to escape responsibility.

 

Marks & Spencer’s were fined in 2011 for asbestos exposure between 2004 and 2006 when refurbishment work was carried out in their premises. They exposed shoppers, staff and contractors. They were fined. They were fined £1 million. But in the same year the profits were hundreds of millions of pounds.

 

Environmental health also used to do a lot of work in this area but again their numbers have been reduced. There were five or six people in Rochdale and four in Stockport but now they have no dedicated team.

12. What would be your message to people working in the construction industry today who are at risk of asbestos exposure?

 

Keep up with your training. Make sure you know how to protect yourself and have the appropriate PPE. Always check the asbestos survey and if there is no survey available don’t work there. This is of course for pre-2000 buildings.

 

Remember that you’re the only person that will protect you.