Australia's Science Forum

I have my head in the sand on this one until next year when hopefully I will have time to deal with it.

We had our metamorphic kits and Moh's scale of hardness kits removed last week. All I can say is that I am glad the cost of the exercise didn't come out of the science budget! It has all been done properly and we will have the paperwork to show this. I now have to look at replacing these kits - something for next year!

Just went through our boxes from "geological specimen supplies" Turramarra ...these kits are dated 1986-1990.
I could not find any of the mentioned samples from the WHS sheet so can I be confident that these are OK ?

I found these guys on the WEB but when I ring the number (02) 9488 8162 to ask them , I'ts not connected .

So where to from here ?
Thanks in advance

Ours came from the same supplier, who I understand is no longer in business. Our metamorphic kits had serpentine and the Moh's kits had talc, so for this reason the entire kits had to be disposed of. If you don't have anything that is listed, there is nothing more that needs to be done. However, I would check with your science coordinator, head support person or your WHS committee to let them know ie pass it on to people who get paid for the responsibility of these decisions.

Thanks Merilyn1 ...That was what I was hoping would be a reasonable way to deal with it .
Incidentally , how did you dispose of the suspect kits .....just that we have shelves full of poorly labled rocks that we have know idea what is what .

My offsider is suggesting that the DET will send around a Rock specialist sometime in the future to make that decision for us .....is that likely ?

I work in a Catholic school in the Wollongong CEO. They received this alert, asked us to check if any kits were potential problems. They had similar kits at one school tested, and as these were found to be contaminated, the decision was made for all kits with the suspect samples to be destroyed. This involved an expensive process of someone coming out from a specialist asbestos disposal company who removed the kits, wiped out the shelves and replaced the unaffected items (I was thinking I should have told him they'd been stored in 20 different cupboards - may have got them all cleaned!)

This person was accompanied by a hygienist who carried out air quality tests whilst the other guy did his work. Seemed like overkill, but at least it was all done properly. We now have the expense of replacing the kits.

I'm not sure what the DET system has in place, but surely with such a big organisation, there must be someone who can help you out. Hopefully, someone on Chemtalk can give some advice - but I suspect a lot of people are in wind down and may not be looking here.

Enjoy your break
Merilyn

Whilst looking at other CSIS information today I came across this Safety Alert issued by the NSW department of Education in February this year
https://detwww.det.nsw.edu.au/workhealt ... ety-alerts It is alert no 59
It says pretty much the same as previous alerts we have read here but is now a departmental recommendation.

This directive was discussed at our February WHS meeting.

I have since double bagged all our MOH's and stored with other chemicals for disposal until such time as they can be collected. Just the week before some building material containing asbestos had been disposed of, so it was agreed that these could await the next pick-up opportunity (due to the expense).

Before bagging them I contacted Serrata, in case they had supplied them to us (our records only go back to 2005), quoting the information on the box - as below:


• A bright orange square label on the lid:

M.C. 001 MOH'S SCALE OF HARDNESS
Geological Specimen Supplies
for
Mineralogical, Petrological and Palaeontological
Specimens and Earth Science Equipment


P.O. Box 186, TURRAMURRA, 2074
Phone 02-488-48162


•Fitted neatly inside the lid a white piece of paper included this information:

G.S.S. Collection MC 001 in the top left corner
and
Copyrite. G.S.S. Australia 1967 in the bottom right corner


I have seen the same MOH's sets at other local schools, and Bigmack mentioned them last December, so am hoping this may be useful...


Max replied, with information about the labels:

This company ceased trading as owner retired many years ago

These COULD have been supplied by GOVT STORES as they were his largest customer

Our records go back to 2000 and we did not supply your school so must have been the Got stores??

He also supplied a lot of other interesting information, so it may be worth contacting him directly. No doubt they've been fielding many similar inquiries!
Meanwhile, we've ordered a new class set from Serrata.

I received information about this term 4 last year and again this year. I have disposed of all our Moh's kits, all talc samples and serpentine samples. I found a large piece of serpentine with asbestos exposed. The local waste disposal accepted it all for a small fee of $37. I work in a DET school and our rock samples date back 30 years or more. So I disposed of it all.
Ferret

I'm curious about this "Hazard Alert" that everyone seems to have received. We did get this last year and it cost the school a small fortune to have the "affected" kits removed and cost Science another whack to replace the kits. I've been searching and cannot find the origin of this "Alert". It certainly has not been issued by a government department. There are references to SA Education Department and the QLD Ed Department, but I cannot find those in an internet search either.

Anyone else been a bit suspicious of this? I'm not saying that it wasn't true but I would like to know the source.

Merilyn, are you a NSW DET school? If so, have a look under Work Health & Safety, Safety Alert 59. Hope this helps. Vicki

This came from the Departyment of Education earlier this year.

Not in a DET school. What we were sent has a "dubious" feel to it, although it does seem to have the same information that was distributed to the government schools. All up, it has been an expensive exercise for something that wasn't properly tested for asbestos - just assumed that the talc would be contaminated.

It is a 'real' alert - and so expensive! we hav eonly just replaced som eof the disposed of kits and we will have to just share what we have now.. a shame we coudlnt claim on insurance
https://www.asbestossafety.gov.au/sites ... 2015_0.pdf

Yes, it was an expensive exercise, that's for sure. Our head office had the kits from one school tested before disposal and on that assumed that all kits were contaminated. We were then instructed to have the kits removed and destroyed - at the school's expense. Fortunately, I had the funds set aside to replace the kits out of this year's budget.
It was a shame to see all the other samples in the kit have to be destroyed. I understand why it was done - imagine if someone was affected by asbestos and we had done nothing to remove potential problems? Although the students and staff have probably had a lot more exposure to asbestos outside of the school. It is nasty stuff and sad to think that a big corporation continued to mine and sell the stuff knowing the health risks.

Science Assist has an information sheet showing different types of asbestos containing minerals and useful information for handling and disposal. These safety alerts have been around for the last five years. When I first started here over 30 years ago the other lab tech got rid of the asbestos rocks which were in the mineral kits. However I think other minerals that weren't listed at the time are now on my list to be disposed of after seeing coloured pictures and different names of rocks containing asbestos, shown in the Science Assist document.

Last week at SLAMN Alan Smith mentioned the Mohs hardness kits sayng that they had tested several different ones and they all were asbestos free . He said we could use our existing Mohs kits again .
When asked about our Talc samples , he sad that they would be fine to use also and that they would have come from companies that spply talc to the beauty industry .

Alan said that at the moment the DoE intranet has been frozen while they carry out an upgrade but as soon as he has access again he will be putting this on as an official update.
So don't throw your Mohs hardness kits out

I find that rather strange advice. Just because the talc was supplied to the beauty industry, does that mean it is asbestos free? I'm sure they have been digging up talc for years without any consideration of contaminants. I'm not saying the risk is high, just saying you can't make assumptions.

I will wait for the alert to be on the intranet....

Absolutely Narelle...I am not suggesting my gossip is gospel . Just a heads up not to throw the kits out just yet.

As far as the Talc goes , I'm kinda with you about assumptions Merilyn .......but I don't think Alan would have flippantly suggested what he did if he felt there was any serious risk.
A head teach I know had already called the Talc thing BS and has made the decision to keep using them regardless of the previous advise. I guess its up to the heads to make the call .Incidentally Same HT that likes talc had decided that all the Heat mats must go .....go figure