29th May 2015, 05:57 PM
Marc Berger Wrote:The main problem is thinking that you will get charged for disposal if you highlight it
certainly a few old anecdotes along those lines...But, in recent (say last 10 years) years I have not come across any Demo/Construction or Related Trades, especially the Management,who do not take asbestos very seriously...the costs of disposal are never really a problem anymore because most Contractors (at least at level of Site Managers) are very keen not to get caught out in any complaints or have made complaints put to them by the HSE
Also costs of urban bulk removal and disposal can be staggeringly massive anyway - the extra costs for 'doing by the book' in regard of asbestos finds are not so significant to those kinds of budgets.
(god knows what happens at the landfill stage though - that appears a tight racket:/ )
Because of this nearly all sub-contractors (particularly the machine drivers) will now follow that same line > > it can a bit over the top at times, but i think there has been in sea change in the industry to doing these things 'by the book', even on suspicion rather than known asbestos risk.
In general issues have arisen because individual contractors have not been bothered to 'do it by the book', rather than directly the cost > the costs are readily passed on as basic overheads in the industry. Archaeologists however can be their own worst enemies, though ignorance of the material (as pointed out), maybe laziness at times, but often due to sheer keenness to 'get digging'.
Because of this, there is one situation that is particularly of concern > a few times now i have seen contracts where the archaeologists have contracted for the whole 'topsoil stripping - clearance' job, rather than simply supervising/monitoring other sub-contractors hired by the client.
The real danger with this is that (potentially) the arch units are very badly set up to absorb the extra costs of eg asbestos removal, with direct impacts on teh rest of budget available for actual archaeological fieldwork :/
Alternatively (and i am thinking of some smaller units in particular here) they pretty much try to ignore the problems like asbestos, or deal with them in what they consider 'sensible' ways > sometimes that is fine, but it is not 'doing it by the book'
as the rest of construction trade are now tending to.