Environmental Impacts | Visible: Air pollution, Loss of landscape/aesthetic degradation, Soil contamination, Waste overflow, Mine tailing spills Potential: Biodiversity loss (wildlife, agro-diversity), Genetic contamination, Surface water pollution / Decreasing water (physico-chemical, biological) quality, Groundwater pollution or depletion |
Other Environmental impacts | Use in building materials and other products means widespread contamination and exposure to humans and uncertain impacts on non-human nature. |
Health Impacts | Visible: Exposure to unknown or uncertain complex risks (radiation, etc…), Mental problems including stress, depression and suicide, Occupational disease and accidents, Infectious diseases, Deaths |
Other Health impacts | Asbestos mining and milling was often conducted under unsafe and uncomfortable working conditions irrespective of the lethal nature of the material involved. |
Socio-economical Impacts | Visible: Increase in Corruption/Co-optation of different actors, Displacement, Lack of work security, labour absenteeism, firings, unemployment, Loss of livelihood, Specific impacts on women, Violations of human rights, Land dispossession, Loss of landscape/sense of place Potential: Increase in violence and crime |
Other socio-economic impacts | All Australians have been and still are exposed to asbestos in the form of environmental dust from degrading building materials etc. It would be almost impossible to estimate the economic and social impacts of the widespread use of asbestos for so many decades after WWII. |