Nanotechnology Environmental Health and Safety

CHAPTER 2 Are We Willing to Heed the Lessons of the Past? Nanomaterials and Australia's Asbestos Legacy

Steve Mullins

Contents

• Introduction

• Lessons of the Past

• Big Problems with Small Materials

• Controls and Risk Assessment

• What Needs to Be Done?

• Acknowledgments

• References

2.1 Introduction

Australian trade unions have been campaigning since the 1960s (Wragg, 1995, p. 32–33) against the use of asbestos and for the rights of workers who have been affected by asbestos to just compensation, with the most high profile case being the James Hardie Industries asbestos tragedy (Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), 2008, p. 383–390). We have witnessed the devastating fallout of an approach to safety and technology that ...