Asbestos Stays Dumped At Redfern Site
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday March 23, 1989
Asbestos has been dumped among a pile of rubble laying in an open space in Redfern. South Sydney Council has twice told the site's owner, Exorcist Pty Ltd, to remove the asbestos-cement sheeting and rubble from the site after complaints by residents, but no action has been taken.
The chairman of Exorcist, Mr Eddy Sternberg, said the asbestos sheeting had been illegally dumped on the site at night by unknown offenders.
"The people who dumped it knocked down the walls, which were three bricks thick, and they bulldozed into the property, where they keep dumping the materials," he said.
Some of the lot's rubble was also from a fire in July, 1985, which gutted the warehouse then on the site, at 146 Pitt Street, Redfern.
A South Sydney Council committee last week moved to have the asbestos-sheeting removed at Exorcist's expense, a decision to be reviewed by the full council last night.
Alderman Maurice Hayler (Ind), who lives near the site, said tables and chairs had been brought on to the lot and fires had been seen at night. Children have also played among the rubbish.
Mr Hayler confirmed that he had seen trucks illegally dumping rubbish on the site at night, but he charged that the lot has "never been properly secured".
"A slight wind comes and the walls of tin (around the site) come crashing into the street, endangering cars the passers-by," Mr Hayler said.
But Mr Sternberg said nothing was properly secure if someone took a bulldozer and knocked down the walls.
"It was secure until they knocked it over."
© 1989 Sydney Morning Herald