When Joaquin Nogues goes out for a walkcounts hundreds of thousands of asbestos structures that involve all kinds of buildings. “It’s what you have to live in Badia del Valles. Here, almost everything is made with asbestos. We continue like this until they finish it eliminate“, he resigns himself. Something similar to Montse Parera every time he goes up to the terrace of his apartment in the poblenou (Barcelona): the first thing you see is a big industrial unit covered with asbestos that forces her to remember her family tragedy, linked to this material.
The normal daily nogués and parera It’s just a example of what thousands of people who carry decades surrounded by asbestos. The Government has presented this week a plan to solve the problem and remove the more than 4 million tons that still remain in Catalonia. But these two neighbors are no longer worth the advertisements nor the speeches to great fanfare: they want to see how asbestos, which has become one of their main concerns, disappears permanently from their lives.
industrial trauma
Parera (71 years old) has always lived in the Poblenou neighborhood and his life has been fatally linked to this material: “My father, my grandfather and my sisters they worked in macosa it inhaled every day”. macosa is the company of construction in which handled asbestos for years. Today he still does not forget the harshness of the factory: “It was very traumatic for everyone, they always came home pissed off from work, no one had a good time in there.” And on top of that, they were paid little, she reproaches.
His father, who started in the company at the age of 10, died of cancer prostate cancer in 2001: “Nobody told us officially, but it’s clear that his body was infested of microfibers of asbestos“. Parera has no doubt: “Surely it was caused by daily contact with this damn material that has not yet been completely eradicated in the neighborhood.” “My family carries asbestos in their blood“, ironically.
coat of paint
More than 20 years after her father’s death, Parera still has to live with this substance on a daily basis. Opposite his house on Carrer de Pallars (corner with Fluvià), there is an industrial building covered in asbestos. Now it’s been repainted,”supposedly to encapsulate it“, but the material is still there.
He is concerned because the building is 50 meters from a school: “The only thing we want it to be removed“Several residents closely followed the encapsulation process and have doubts about whether it was done with maximum security. However, they do not want to look back: their only wish is that they remove it completely. Or, if necessary, that the entire ship, as has been speculated on your street.
The industrial warehouse is one of the 80s. At that time it belonged to the company Standard Comics. Now it is used as a sports center. Inside, the roof is also uralite. “At my age, I don’t worry, but there are more neighbors and they can’t go on like this, they have to finish the job they left half done,” she criticizes. In recent years, much of the neighborhood’s asbestos has been removed. But some neighbours, such as those on the streets of Pallars and Fluvià, still see it day after day.
In Badia del Vallès things are different. Joaquin noguésa member of the neighborhood association, has 65 years and landed on badia with 17: “The city was built all at once, so the asbestos was will degrade at the same moment”. It is everywhere: roof tiles, pipes, balconies, facades. The situation is similar to that in Cerdanyola del Valleswhere there are also several residents mobilized to eradicate asbestos, which also plagues the city.
doctor’s conference
In Badia, the Administration has already decided what will replace asbestos in the rooftops, a planning that has delayed the removal of the material. As of the next few weeks, they will begin to talk to the neighbors to tell them what a process will be like that will begin with the encapsulation. They trust that it will start this year. The next step will be to eliminate it permanently: “It is very necessary, but please do it as quickly as possible,” he claims. Everyone hopes that the times of politics and bureaucracy will not interrupt the operation anymore.
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“At the beginning of living in Badia, I was not aware what was happening, but one day, a doctor gave us a talk and we realized it.” He explained to them that this material begins to degrade after about 40 years and that it is at this point that it is most harmful to health. These four approximate decades are completed now, so these neighbors do not want to wait for the year 2032, when the European Union demands the complete end of asbestos.
The specific plan for Badia was announced by President Pere Aragonès more than a year ago on site. And in the municipality they do not forget what they were assured that day. “Is a very big workonly in Badia there are thousands of tonsbut it has to be done now. If not, people will return to rumors and doubt the promises“, warns Nogués, who knows his fellow citizens well. One thing is clear to him: every day that he spends with asbestos in buildings, is a defeat for the residents.