Families living near Victoria Park, right next to the University of Sydney and the busy Broadway shopping centre, can no longer bring their kids to play.
That is because it is now dotted with fenced off islands, with yellow and orange webbing and signs warning that asbestos has been found in mulch laid around it.
However, the problem is not confined to this inner-city park.
Numerous parks, a hospital, supermarket and聽聽have been found to be similarly聽,聽and some have been forced to close for weeks while the asbestos is removed.
The number聽of asbestos-polluted sites around greater Sydney is growing by the day.
Asbestos is a deadly substance. I worked in a James Hardie asbestos factory when I was young. Many of my co-workers聽from that time developed asbestosis, or lung cancer, and some suffered early and miserable deaths.
A scan of my lungs taken a few years鈥 ago revealed areas of thickened tissue in the outer layer of the lung lining, the parietal pleura.
Pleural plaques indicate asbestos exposure. They develop 10 to 30 years after the initial asbestos exposure, are benign and usually do not require treatment: I am one of the lucky ones.
This latest public discussion of asbestos pollution in public places in greater Sydney was sparked a month ago by the discovery of asbestos in a children鈥檚 playground built in the middle of the giant privately-owned tollway road interchange at Rozelle.
This playground was a token attempt to buy some public acceptance of the multi-billion dollar publicly subsidised WestConnex network, that has made this city one of the most road-tolled in the world.
It is a criminally irresponsible project that has done the opposite of its official purpose: to 鈥渇uture-proof鈥 the city鈥檚 transport system.
Local residents 鈥斅爏ome of whom had put up a many-year-long resistance to WestConnex 鈥斅爃ad a rude shock when the interchange opened earlier this year. There was traffic chaos, roads jammed in peak hour and people struggling to get to work or to get their kids to school. Months later, the traffic chaos continues.
Then came salt in the wound, as asbestos was found shortly after the new playground was opened with great fanfare. It had to be closed down.
This was not the first asbestos scandal associated with WestConnex. There were聽聽in 2016 that asbestos-polluted road base聽had been supplied by a private contractor to WestConnex, as well as to private homes.
At the heart of the problem is a political and economic disease that has destroyed lives, communities and the environment over the last few decades.
It is one of the ugly fruits of the right-wing, neoliberal 鈥渞eform鈥 that has corrupted everything in a tsunami of privatisation and deregulation.
Balmain Greens MP Kobi Shetty described the Rozelle Parkland asbestos scandal as just the 鈥渢he tip of the iceberg鈥.
The Guardian聽聽proving that the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has known about the contamination risk of mulch and filling supplied by for-profit corporate recycling companies for more than a decade, and has so far failed to act.
The EPA had warned that a business-as-usual approach would mean there was a risk that up to 658,000 tonnes of 鈥渘on-compliant material鈥 a year could be applied to 鈥渟ensitive land鈥, including residential sites, childcare facilities, schools and parks.
But the EPA abandoned聽a proposal to tighten the regulations in 2022 after 鈥減ushback from industry and negative media coverage鈥,聽reported on January 29. Corporate profitability trumped public health and safety.
Even as the number of affected sites grows, one company alleged to be the source of asbestos-contaminated material is taking legal action to prevent the EPA from stopping it from distributing even more of the suspect material.
A former compliance officer with the EPA has聽聽that the problem was 鈥渄estined to happen鈥 because of more than a decade of deregulation.
The NSW Labor government says it is conducting an urgent investigation into the matter.