Managing asbestos in Italy: twenty years after the ban

Our plain-English summary of Managing asbestos in Italy: twenty years after the ban, by S. Silvestri (New Solutions, 2012).

The study

• Author: S. Silvestri
• Journal: New Solutions
• Published: 2012;22(4):489-96
• Cited by: 7 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

Establishing an asbestos ban is not sufficient to achieve effective primary prevention. Twenty years after the Italian asbestos ban, the residual presence of asbestos-containing materials, estimated to be 80 percent of the quantity existing in 1992, may still be the cause of negative effects to the health of workers and the general population. The so called "asbestos way-out" at this rate of cleaning up, roughly 1 percent per year, is too slow, and new policy to re-discuss the entire process is needed. Encouragement of the owners with tax relief when the substitution of the asbestos roofs is performed with photovoltaic panels, as well as reducing the cost of removal planning local landfills may be the keys to accelerate the cleanup process.

In plain English

This article is a policy commentary, not a research study. The author reviewed Italy's handling of asbestos-containing materials still in place twenty years after its 1992 ban. Using annual reports that users and removers of asbestos must file under Article 9 of the 1992 law, the author presented removal figures for Tuscany. From 1995 to 2011, 264,252 tons were removed (245,402 tons compact, 18,850 tons friable), on average 15,000 to 20,000 tons a year. This compared with an estimated 2.5 million tons present in 1992. The author attributed a rise in 2011 (26,066 tons) to tax relief for replacing asbestos roofs with photovoltaic panels. The author judged that, at this rate, cleanup is unlikely to finish before the end of the century. The author reported that nearly 60 percent of asbestos waste is shipped outside Italy and that the shortage of local landfills adds 25 percent to cleanup costs. The author noted that the total amount in Italy is unknown and that reporting is incomplete. The author concluded that the ban should be extended to require removal, with 2022 proposed as a deadline.

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 commentary (feature article) drawing on regional removal records; not an original epidemiological study
• Who was studied: Asbestos-containing materials remaining in Italy after the 1992 ban, with removal data for the Tuscany region from annual Article 9 reports, 1995-2011
• Exposure: Asbestos-containing materials left in place after the ban (indirect use), such as asbestos pipe insulation and asbestos cement roofs, classified as compact or friable; no specific fiber types named
• Main results:
  • About 2.5 million tons of asbestos-containing materials were estimated to be present in Tuscany in 1992. On average 15,000 to 20,000 tons were removed each year.
  • Table 1 reports 264,252 tons removed in Tuscany from 1995 to 2011: 245,402 tons of compact asbestos and 18,850 tons of friable asbestos. The 2011 total was 26,066 tons.
  • The author attributed the increase in the last year to tax relief for replacing asbestos roofing with photovoltaic panels.
  • At the current rate, the author considered it likely that cleanup would not be finished until the end of the century.
  • The article's abstract estimated the residual asbestos-containing material in Italy at 80 percent of the 1992 quantity, cleared at roughly 1 percent per year.
  • Nearly 60 percent of asbestos waste is transported by road outside Italy, mainly to Germany.
  • The shortage of local landfills forces export of the waste, which the author said raises cleanup costs by 25 percent.
  • The author stated that since World War II more people in Italy have died from falls through asbestos roofs (40-60 annually) than from mesothelioma among asbestos cement industry workers.
  • Between 500 and 600 prevention technicians work full-time supervising asbestos activities.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the 1992 ban should be extended to require removal of asbestos-containing materials still in place, on a timetable set by risk. The author proposed 2022 as a reasonable deadline.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The total amount of asbestos-containing material present in Italy in 1992 is not known.
  • The Article 9 reporting requirement is inconsistently enforced, with under-notification, mainly by individual owners.
  • An accurate removal figure is difficult to provide, although the author considered the official order of magnitude close to reality.

Topics

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

Related studies

• The contribution of environmental monitoring in the epidemiological assessment of exogenous risk. The experience of ARPA in the Emilia-Romagna Region of Italy — A. Zavatti, P. Lauriola (1999)
• Health impact of exposure to asbestos in polluted area of Southern Italy — L. Vimercati, D. Cavone, et al. (2019)
• Para-occupational exposures to asbestos: lessons learned from Casale Monferrato, Italy — L.T. Stayner (2016)
• Pleural mesothelioma and occupational and non-occupational asbestos exposure: a case-control study with quantitative risk assessment — D. Ferrante, D. Mirabelli, et al. (2016)
• The JPC-SE position statement on asbestos: a long-overdue appeal by epidemiologists to ban asbestos worldwide and end related global environmental injustice — W.K. Al-Delaimy (2013)
• Guidelines for asbestos remediation at Italian superfund sites — F. Paglietti, S. Malinconico, et al. (2012)

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