A CAMPAIGN to encourage businesses to be more aware of the dangers of asbestos has been launched.

The campaign was launched at a breakfast seminar last week organised by the Jersey Safety Council and attended by scores of workers from local companies, including Jersey Electricity, Jersey Gas and A C Mauger.

The council is also planning a series of advertisements aimed at workers likely to come into contact with asbestos, which was widely used during the Island’s building boom of the 1960s and 70s because of its resistance to heat, electricity and chemical damage.

Nowadays, there is a legal responsibility for Islanders to survey properties and monitor asbestos, and guest speakers at the seminar warned businesses of the importance of doing so. Visiting speaker Steve Shuttler, managing director of Burton Environmental Services, is an engineer with a broad experience of the problems associated with asbestos.

• Picture: Members of the Safety Council