Maintaining asbestos cement pipelines

As we all know too well, asbestos is a hazardous material. It is dangerous to work with, it is costly to remove and dispose of and it can cause major delays to projects if it is not planned for, but all of this aside, it doesn’t change the fact that some of our most critical water and wastewater assets that we rely on daily are AC and they still have life left in them.

The amount of life varies from pipe to pipe and it is something that we must prioritise as we move forward into the future.

Many asbestos cement water mains across Australia & New Zealand are now over 50 years old. International studies have shown that ageing pipes can release both long and short fibres into drinking water, raising concerns for public health and asset performance. While the health effects of ingested fibres remain uncertain, what’s clear is the infrastructure risk — ageing AC mains are brittle, failure-prone, and costly to repair. We specialise in sustainable, trenchless rehabilitation technologies that extend the life of these pipelines, minimise community disruption, and safeguard water quality.

Contributing factors include the age and poor condition of the pipes, chemically aggressive soft water that accelerates internal decay, seismic activity and ground disturbance that worsen pipe deterioration, and variations in manufacturing quality

Using technologies like Resiline 320 and Primus Line, we effectively create a barrier between the AC host pipe and the water, mitigating any further fibre release and providing safer water to our communities.

Primus Line can specifically also be used as a safe method of rehabilitation after being externally assessed in accordance with TRGS 519 which is the German regulation for handling asbestos during maintenance, renovation and demolition.