31 March 2016: A report by the Pacific Hazardous Waste Management (PacWaste) project coordinated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) warns of asbestos risks among Pacific island countries. The report, titled ‘The State of Asbestos in the Pacific,’ was released for Global Asbestos Awareness Week (1-7 April), in partnership with the EU and World Health Organization (WHO).

The report synthesizes findings from a PacWaste survey conducted in 2015 to document the location and relative risk of asbestos materials on 25 islands across 13 Pacific small island developing States (SIDS), namely Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. It finds that just four of the 13 countries account for 83% of confirmed non-residential asbestos in the region (Nauru, Niue, Kiribati and Vanuatu), and that 78% of the non-residential asbestos identified has been classified as either high or moderate risk.

The report also confirms that new building products containing asbestos continue to be imported into the region. As part of the report’s launch, Rokho Kim, WHO’s Western Pacific Office, urged Pacific SIDS to ban asbestos-containing imports.

As a result of the survey, PacWaste intends to work over the next 12 months at 73 separate sites across 11 countries to remove asbestos where it poses the greatest health risk. The EU, which is funding the remedial actions, says “20% of the region’s confirmed, non-residential asbestos” will be safely removed.

PacWaste is a €7.85 million, four-year project funded by the EU and implemented by SPREP, aimed at improving hazardous waste management. PacWaste also funds a best-practice demonstration project on atoll waste management on the Marshall Islands atoll of Majuro. [SPREP Press Release] [Publication: The State of Asbestos in the Pacific] [PacWaste Website] [IISD RS Story on 2015 Asbestos Survey]