European Asbestos Remediation Conference 2009

At the invitation of Dr. Eng. Sergio Clarelli, President of ASSOAMIANTO (Italian Association of Asbestos Remediation & Disposal Contractors & Consultants) ACAD attended the Conference in Ferrara as one of the guest speakers. The conference was held to provide a platform for representatives from various European Nations to come together and share their experiences with asbestos.

The conference was opened by Dr. Sergio Clarelli who began by welcoming the delegates and introducing the guest speakers.

The first presentation was made by Pascal Haller, Multinational Laboratory Director for Eurofins who gave a very motivating talk on the latest advances in the techniques used in the analysis of airborne asbestos fibres.

The next speaker was Federica Paglietti from the National Occupational Safety & Prevention Research Institute who explained how a program to identify and deal with asbestos issues at various sites throughout Italy had progressed and looked at some specific examples in more detail.

Following on from this, we next had a presentation from Alberto Verado from the Prevention and Sanitation sector and Public Health on the interaction between the public and past employees during the asbestos remediation work at a factory near Genoa.

After this, it was the turn of ACAD to present the movements in the UK and the progress of raising awareness. Peter Austin, ACAD Manager used a presentation to demonstrate various UK statistics supported by the HSE along with references to the ACAD Membership and the approach they take.

The final speaker was Massimo Bergamini from the former asbestos mine at Balengero near Turin where new and innovative environmental engineering techniques have been used successfully to regenerate the region.

This was followed by a lengthy question and answer session where the guest speakers took questions from the delegates and did their best to answer several difficult questions on a number of complex issues.

Overall the conference was deemed to have been a great success with a number of delegates expressing their opinion that they had learned much useful information on how their European neighbours were dealing with their asbestos problems.

We would like to thank ASSOAMIANTO and President Sergio Clarelli for the kind invitation and their hospitality whilst attending the conference.

Peter Austin - ACAD Manager