The marketing of asbestos was banned in 2022, but the material in good condition was allowed to remain despite the potential risks to public health and the environment, the Vice-President of the Government, Laura Vilagrà, indicated yesterday in the presentation of the census of roofs with fiber cement in Catalonia. On March 21, 2023, the national plan for the total eradication of asbestos was approved, which established a deadline between 2023 and 2032. One of the strategic lines to proceed with the extraction of fiber cement elements is the census made public yesterday, which shows that in Catalonia there are still 122,460 roofs with fiber cement, that is, the exposure to the atmosphere of 700,000 tons of asbestos that must be removed in less than eight years.
The new detailed census, obtained through an aerial roof tracking system promoted by the Cartographic and Geological Institute (ICGC), is equipped with hyperspectral sensors that have allowed us to conclude that 945 Catalan municipalities, out of 947, have these roofs .
In parallel with the census drive, the Government of the Generalitat will approve the asbestos eradication bill, which will provide the municipalities with resources to extract the harmful elements from the roofs. The sampling has detected that 71% of the roofs are in urban environments, while the remaining 29% are located in rural areas.
The local bodies will have two financing lines with 50 million. In the same way, individuals, companies and municipalities that have this kind of structure in buildings they own will have another type of aid that consists of extracting the asbestos and, in its place, installing plates photovoltaics to promote self-consumption. So far, 2,500 applications have been approved to “remove asbestos and install tiles”.
“We needed to have the fiber cement locations in Catalonia”, explained Vilagrà, to prioritize the extraction of the approximately 40 square kilometers of roof surface with this harmful mineral element. 40% of these structures are in manufacturing industries, 17% belong to retail store roofs, and 16% to the primary sector.
The territory with the most roofs of uralite, the commercial name by which fiber cement with asbestos is known, is the Metropolitan Area of ??Barcelona, ??although analysts also highlight areas of inner Catalonia, such as Osona, Bages, Segrià and Lands of the Ebro. From now on, the municipalities will have to compare the information, detail the percentage of asbestos and account for other elements where this material is present, such as downspouts, industrial insulation or underground pipes, to, in parallel, assess the health risks. In this case, priority will be given to the most sensitive groups, such as schools or health centers. However, fiber cement installations built after 2022 do not contain asbestos, so they must be excluded from the official census.
The details of the locations of fiber cement with asbestos, apart from those that are not visible from the air, can be consulted through the website amiant.gencat.cat, where a consultation tool or viewer allows you to specify the situation of each municipality on a dynamic map.
To prepare the census and the map, which cost 700,000 euros, the ICGC flew over the territory to map the roofs. It has flown with sensors and used high-resolution satellite imagery, which has been combined with artificial intelligence software to obtain a degree of detail of up to 35 m2 with a laser altimeter that has explored the territory and allows an accuracy level of 98%. Data open to the public so that municipalities can start extraction management.
