The Petition for the Total Removal of Asbestos in Public Schools arises after the identification of numerous schools where there were still materials that supposedly contained asbestos, such as fiber cement, visible to the naked eye, among others, included in the list of materials that could contain material carcinogenic. In just a few days, ZERO MESA and FENPROF collected thousands of signatures.
Already in 2019, ZERO’s great concern and alert drew attention to the ineffective inventory of contaminated materials in schools, which was reduced to asbestos cement. After the initiation of the removal action of Materials Containing Asbestos (MCA) by the government (laudable, despite everything) we run the risk of not knowing where we are, since this harmful material is found in various other materials such as coatings of floors or walls, paintings, partitions, among many others.
In this sense, the concerns for 2019 continue to be:
“(…) without a proper prior evaluation of all the materials that contain asbestos, the works that have already been carried out to remove this dangerous material in the buildings of the aforementioned ministries may have left other materials that contain asbestos, possibly more dangerous than fiber cement.”
As for the asbestos removal program in public schools, which ZERO and MESA applauded at the time, questions that were never answered remain to be clarified:
- What companies are in charge of inventorying CAMs in schools?
- What materials were considered in the inventory?
- What happened to the schools that had a phase-out from MCA and where was a pavilion or structure left for later?
- What happened to the schools identified in the first list of schools with MCA whose municipalities did not request the withdrawal plan?
Continuing with the issue of the identification of CAM in schools, comparing the official documents reflected in the following graph, an abrupt drop in the number of buildings identified in the Ministry of Education is observed in just 1 year. Between the 2019 Report and the 2020 List, going from 1180 buildings to 578 schools in Order No. 6573-A/2020. This variation surprises us once again when, in the same year, in the List for the first half of 2020, the figure drops to 489 properties. This value gains greater expression since, in comparison, between the first semester of 2020 and the second semester of 2022, approximately 285 properties were intervened, after the promulgation of the Asbestos Removal Program.
Graph 1- Graph with data on properties that contain asbestos (in yellow) and properties under surveillance by the Ministry of Education that contain asbestos (in blue), according to publication in the aforementioned diplomas – ZERO.
The question persists about what happened to the 691 properties mentioned in 2019 and that they disappeared at the end of the first half of 2020.
We are concerned about the reports about the practice of removing asbestos cement during class hours, in some schools, due to the danger of exposing the entire school population to this carcinogenic material. We recall the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) in this regard (there is no value below which exposure to asbestos is safe). In the asbestos removal program, the setting of a deadline for the removal of asbestos cement in schools, caused a wild race in search of qualified companies to carry out the work in just two or three summers of school vacations. The need to solve this program in such a short time was the propitious scenario for various situations that compromised important security principles.
The asbestos removal program in public schools was promulgated, and well, by the government (in Decree No. 6573-A/2020). As owners of the work, the municipalities could request access to the funds that would provide the means for such removal. It is still necessary: i) a serious and rigorous inventory, by companies recognized for this purpose, of all materials likely to contain asbestos; ii) the publication of the list of buildings, facilities and public equipment object of this study, as well as the identification of the entities responsible for this inventory; iii) guarantee the safety and methodology recommended for the removal of the ACM instead of subjecting it to a period that compromises the correct execution of the work; iv) finally, the supervision and follow-up of the entire program through the publication of clear and rigorous reports on what is done, how, who is responsible and which establishments are the object of these interventions.
Thus, there seems to be a gap between the announcement made by the Government that asbestos has been removed or is being removed from schools and reality: i) after all, it was not asbestos that was removed, but asbestos cement; and ii) only public schools between kindergarten and grade 12, leaving out more than 3,000 schools, as ZERO, MESA and FENPROF have already reported.
18 years after the ban on asbestos in Portugal, 12 years after the publication of the law on the removal of asbestos in public buildings, 6 years after the first group that updated the number of public buildings containing asbestos, 5 years after of the law on the removal of asbestos in private companies, 3 years in the Asbestos Removal in Schools program, the same mistakes are still being made at the beginning of this journey. There is a lot to clarify in a job that lacks transparency and rigor. It has passed from ministry to ministry like a hot potato, making it impossible for civil society to follow up and verify the issue and to follow up such a sensitive public health problem safely and correctly. In a democracy it is not enough to appear serious, it is necessary to be so too. The school community, the parents of the children and the general population have the right to know how, by whom and what is removed from the schools. Transparency promotes rigor and accountability. These are the basic rules of democracy.
Source: Observadora
