There are fears asbestos mulch has been located on a popular walking track in Sydney’s Inner West.
In an alert released on Tuesday afternoon, the Inner West Council said mulch obtained by the manufacturer at the centre of the scandal, Greenlife Resource Recovery, had been used in a recent upgrade of the Lilyfield Road Bridge on the Bay Run.
The popular 7km circuit goes through the shoreline of Drummoyne, Five Dock, Rozelle, Lilyfield, and Haberfield.
The council said the contractor undertaking the project, Regal Landscaping, had been notified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that a small amount of the mulch, about 12 cubic metres, used in the project.
“This was identified through the EPA’s ongoing tracing of asbestos contaminated mulch,” the alert said.
“We have been informed that the supplier of the mulch, Turtle Landscape Supplies, had sourced the material through a supply chain linking back to Greenlife Resource Recovery.”
The area was immediately fenced off on Monday night, and a spokeswoman for the EPA has confirmed testing is in progress, and said the site had been secured.
The environment authority also said the risk of exposure to the community was very low.
To date, asbestos contaminated mulch has been located at a total of 47 sites, with 796 tests reporting negative results.
On Tuesday, asbestos was found at six more sites, including a positive result of friable asbestos at Bicentennial Park 1 in Glebe.
Bonded asbestos was also found at North Rosebery Park, a private aged care facility in St Ives, an industrial area in Rouse Hill, a not publicly accessible private site, and at the Mary Mackillop Catholic Parish in Oran Park.
NSW Health’s executive director of Health Protection NSW Dr Jeremy McAnulty said the discoveries posed a “low risk” to public health.
“At this point, thankfully, the results indicate that the risk is low but we’ll be continuing to examine this information as it comes through,” he said.
NSW EPA chief Tony Chappel said it had contacted the “vast majority” of businesses and sites where the mulch has been used, and said testing would be completed “as soon as possible”.
“I’m confident we will get to a rigorous conclusion soon and that that will be as soon as we possibly can,” he said.
In relation to schools, Mr Chappel said he did not believe there should be an audit of all sites which have used recycled mulch.
“We haven’t seen anything to date that would warrant advice of that,” he said.