A veteran Canberra asbestos assessor has said the common insulation of synthetic mineral fibres were an "irritant" but posed none of the risk of asbestos and could usually remain in ceilings.
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The comments came as Housing ACT agreed to clean out SMF from one public housing tenant's roof in Watson after a separate licensed asbestos assessor recommended its removal as soon as practical.
Frank Poole has been a licensed assessor for two decades and said he had never recommended any homeowner have SMF removed from their ceiling, or - until last week - heard of any other assessor who had done so.
"We recommend that if anyone has to be working in [the ceiling] that they wear protective clothing, but that's because it's an irritant and you don't want contact with your skin and you don't want to breath it in either, but it's not in the same category as a cancerous product, as asbestos is," he said.
Mr Poole, the inaugural ACT Asbestos Industry Forum chairman, said SMFs were looked for as part of the hazardous materials audits he prepared, but the "normal thing" was for it to be left in the site where it was installed. At least 60 per cent of Canberra homes would have SMF insulation, he said.
ACT Work Safety Commissioner Mark McCabe said he had asked the capital's largest asbestos assessors, Robson Environmental, to advise on how the material should be managed. Robson had done an original test on the Watson home but had made a finding only on whether asbestos was present.
Mr McCabe, who has not visited the home, said he believed the separate Sydney-based assessor's recommendation for SMF to be removed was unnecessary, and on the latest information did not believed there was a need for Housing to implement a register of the presence of such material, nor for it to implement a program for its removal.
"On a risk assessment basis this does not seem to be a huge public safety issue but we'll get the second opinion," he said.
While certain forms of SMF are classified as a probable carcinogen, Safe Work Australia has said it is "highly unlikely" these would be the forms found in residential buildings. The most common residential SMF insulators, glasswool and rockwool, have been listed as not classifiable as to their carcinogenicity to humans.
Mr McCabe said he was advised on Friday that Housing ACT had arranged a date for the SMF to be removed from the Watson property's ceiling.
Tenant Safronia Benasic confirmed the removal would go ahead but said she was yet to receive the date.
