Guidelines for asbestos remediation at Italian superfund sites

Our plain-English summary of Guidelines for asbestos remediation at Italian superfund sites, by F. Paglietti, S. Malinconico, V. Di Molfetta, et al (Journal of Environmental Science and Health. Part C, Environmental Carcinogenesis & Ecotoxicology Reviews, 2012).

The study

• Authors: F. Paglietti, S. Malinconico, V. Di Molfetta, M. Giangrasso
• Journal: Journal of Environmental Science and Health. Part C, Environmental Carcinogenesis & Ecotoxicology Reviews
• Published: 2012;30(3):253-86
• Type of article: Review
• Cited by: 9 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

Asbestos is now banned in 52 countries. Although Italy banned asbestos in 1992, up until that date it had been one of the main producer nations of asbestos and asbestos-containing materials, and asbestos-related contamination is still widespread in the country. To reduce asbestos-related health effects, Italy has adopted many laws and regulations regarding exposure thresholds and remediation tools. Even so, there are legislative gaps that are making it difficult to manage related risks especially in the operative phase. The lack of standard procedures at a national level regarding emergency shutdown and remediation as well as reference thresholds for specific risk situations creates difficulties and different actions when dealing with the cleanup of Italian asbestos superfund sites. The authors propose operative guidelines for asbestos remediation at Italian superfund sites. INAIL, the reference national organization for asbestos-related matters, acting as an advisor to a number of state, regional, and local authorities, examined the main asbestos-related risk situations in Italy and proposed the most appropriate actions to take. The detailed analysis of many actual cases of risk, in part through inspections and the management of cleanup actions at asbestos Italian superfund sites, resulted in proposals to modify existing procedures and thresholds, which were subsequently discussed with all national, regional, and local scientific bodies. After more than two years of work and discussion at a national level, INAIL-DIPIA-Asbestos Group drafted new Guidelines for Asbestos Remediation at Italian Superfund sites, and officially submitted them to the Environment Ministry. The Ministry then adopted the document in regard to all asbestos Italian superfunds. This recently released document is also a useful reference for contaminated sites at a regional and local level. The operative Guidelines for Asbestos Remediation at Italian Superfund sites may also be of use at an international level for countries that have already banned asbestos and are engaged in remediation activity and for countries that have not yet banned asbestos but wish to adopt risk prevention measures.

In plain English

This article was not a study of people or of health outcomes. The authors, from INAIL (the Italian Workers' Compensation Authority) and the Environment Ministry, described Italy's asbestos laws and presented guidelines for asbestos cleanup at Italian superfund sites. Italy has 57 such sites; asbestos is the main contaminant at 10. The authors' asbestos group discussed the proposals for more than two years with national, regional and local bodies, and the Environment Ministry adopted it for all asbestos superfund sites. The guidelines listed gaps in Italian law, including the lack of any airborne asbestos threshold for outdoor living environments. For these they proposed 0.001 fibers/cm3, a value the article attributes to the WHO, or, on the advice of the local technical body (ARPA), twice the average background level recorded before work began, averaged over at least 15 days. They also called for monitoring workers in all work phases, provincial certification of outdoor cleanups, and local authority checks of at least 10% of samples. The authors concluded that the guidelines help fill some of the gaps in Italian asbestos legislation.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Policy and guidance article: a description of Italian asbestos regulations and proposed operative guidelines for asbestos remediation. It contains no epidemiological data.
• Who was studied: Asbestos-contaminated Italian superfund sites: 57 sites identified for remediation, 10 of them with asbestos as the main contaminant (for example Casale Monferrato, Balangero, Broni, Bari, Biancavilla).
• Exposure: Asbestos contamination of air, soil, water and materials at contaminated sites, covering serpentine (chrysotile) and amphibole asbestos.
• Main results:
  • The guidelines identified gaps in Italian law. One was the lack of a reference threshold for exposure in outdoor living environments.
  • Proposed airborne reference threshold for outdoor (urban) living environments: 0.001 fibers/cm3, attributed to the WHO. Exceeding it triggers an alarm procedure.
  • Alternative threshold, chosen subject to the advice of the local technical body (ARPA): twice the average background level recorded before work began, averaged over at least 15 days.
  • Workers (personnel) must be monitored indoors and outdoors during all work phases.
  • Inside the segregated outdoor remediation area, pre-alarm and alarm thresholds were printed as 20 and 50 fibers/cm3 (PCOM analysis). The units are as printed; see text_problems.
  • For fenced, inaccessible areas inside the superfund perimeter but outside the remediation area, pre-alarm and alarm thresholds were 0.001 and 0.002 fibers/cm3 (SEM analysis).
  • Certification of outdoor remediation should be issued by provincial authorities for each confined zone or area.
  • Non-asbestos materials from reclamation work (such as iron and wood) may be reused only after decontamination and only if they contain no other harmful substances.
  • Local health or environmental authorities (ASL or ARPA) must counter-analyze and certify at least 10% of all samples.
  • Recommended respiratory protection included full face masks with P3 filters or class 3 power-assisted respirators.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the guidelines, some already adopted by the Environment Ministry at Italian superfund sites, help fill some of the gaps in Italian asbestos legislation.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Superfund, Asbestos-Containing Material (ACM).

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