✅ Key takeaway: Asbestos exposure is 100% preventable — but only if you identify it before work starts. This week is the perfect reminder: if you’re working on a pre-2000 building, assume asbestos, check the plans, and protect your team.
Asbestos Awareness Week 2025: no excuses for putting workers at risk.
Asbestos is still New Zealand’s number one workplace killer. Despite the risks being well known for decades, around 220 people here die every year from asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis. The really tough part? Symptoms often don’t show up until 10–40 years after exposure. (WorkSafe)
This Asbestos Awareness Week (17–23 November), WorkSafe & Besafe are calling on businesses, PCBUs, and tradies to lift their game and make sure workers are not being exposed to asbestos fibres when they don’t need to be. There’s no excuse for “just drilling one hole” or “quickly cutting that sheet” when the material hasn’t been checked.
Where asbestos is still a risk
If you’re working in or on buildings built before the year 2000, there’s a real chance asbestos-containing materials are present – in linings, claddings, vinyl, textured coatings, insulation and more. Any work that cuts, drills, sands, breaks, or removes these materials can release invisible fibres into the air.
Practical steps you can take this week
Use Asbestos Awareness Week as a prompt to:
- Check your asbestos management plan – If you manage or control a workplace, you must have an up-to-date plan.
- Review upcoming work – if there’s any cutting, drilling, demolition, or refurbishment planned, confirm whether asbestos is present before work starts.
- Talk with your team and contractors about the rule: “If you don’t know what it is, don’t disturb it.”
- Use the free WorkSafe resources – templates for asbestos management plans, updated guidance on asbestos in workplaces and homes, PPE advice, registers of licensed removalists and assessors, and information on where to dispose of asbestos waste safely. Find resources here: www.worksafe.govt.nz/asbestos
Asbestos disease is preventable. Taking the time now to understand where asbestos might be, manage it properly, and make sure your team is trained and informed is one of the most important health and safety steps you can take.
Don’t guess — get trained.
➡️ Besafe delivers Asbestos Awareness, Class A, Class B, and Assessor training to meet your regulatory requirements. Get your team qualified by experts.
Why Book Now?
✔ Reduce incidents and improve on-site decision-making
✔ Stay compliant with NZQA-aligned, industry-led training
Click here to view our courses & book asbestos training.
