[stevejb]

Australia also probably has some of the worst deployments of asbestos in the developed world. Drive around even nice neighborhoods in Sydney and you’ll see plenty of cracking and breaking “fibro”, a cement asbestos sheet. Canberra is full of asbestos. They had to completely remove an asbestos mining town (Wittenoom) from the map because it was so contaminated.

There is a ton of asbestos currently in Australian households. Plenty of aussies drink water collected in tanks off of asbestos cement roofs.

[Skgqie1]

Yes - unfortunately we have a lot of leftover usages of asbestos.

Historically, it was used a lot. My father even remembers playing around in the bush as a kid, and using asbestos for chalk a bunch of time to mark stuff on trees. My friends dad also remembers coming home covered in asbestos after work a bunch of times too.

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment about seeing asbestos in nice neighbourhoods. It depends how you define nice.

Asbestos was banned in 2003,but hasn't been used in housing since the 80s, so it's only going to be in older developments that you'll really encounter it.

Your wording regarding "plenty of Aussies" is also unclear to me. The numbers as a percentage are going to be very low, but it undoubtedly is a thing.

[stevejb]

I was visiting a relative in their $3M+ house in Bronte and saw plenty of it. Not in the front facades of the homes, but drive through the back alleys, and you can spot some in < 1 min. I remember an uncle there who's neighbor had a fibro cement mail box which was built into some stone work.

I agree my usage of "plenty" was more in absolute terms. It is probably thousands to tens of thousands, which is small in percentage terms. I also spent a lot of time on Australian farms, and they have lots of asbestos sheets buried in places. Most farmers would rather pile it up or bury it then pay the costs of having it removed properly.