Asbestos removal in Morwell and Latrobe City

Paying, the kit and the tip: it all starts on Commercial Road

Latrobe City's headquarters at 141 Commercial Road is the counter that matters for household asbestos anywhere in the municipality, Morwell or not.

• Pay before the tip run. Domestic asbestos goes to the Hyland Highway Landfill at Loy Yang, by appointment, and the gatehouse there can't take money. Pay at Commercial Road first and take the receipt with you.
• The council kit. The same office sells a kit for small quantities for $71, and the price includes disposal of one cubic metre. Before you buy one, read the state's homeowner guidance: asbestos.vic.gov.au says removal work is best performed by licensed asbestos removalists.
• The wrapping rule. Every package double-wrapped in heavy black builders' plastic, 20 kilograms at most. Parcels that are bigger or wrapped badly are turned away.
• The booking. The landfill's address is 64 Bartons Lane, Loy Yang, and appointments go through the weighbridge operator on 0400 506 474. A Latrobe resident can bring one cubic metre at most, and the council's fee list has it at $71 per cubic metre.

Fees change, so ring Latrobe City before you load the car. The disposal page has the other councils' rules.

How Morwell was built

Morwell grew in two pushes. The first came when APM located its paper mill at Maryvale in the 1930s: APM built houses in the town for its staff and workers, and private builders added more, with 300 houses going up in the five years after 1937. The second push was far bigger. After the war an open cut mine, a briquette factory and a power station were built to the south of the town, and in the decade after 1947 Morwell grew by 10,000 people to a population of 13,000. The Housing Commission built over 2,000 houses for them, and the residential area spread east and north. Many of the newcomers were migrants. Moe and Newborough grew in the same years on Yallourn's workforce, and have their own page. The other Gippsland towns are listed on the Gippsland asbestos removal home page. For a while there was also White City, about 200 prefabricated SEC houses near the Thorpdale Road, named for their main exterior colour, which lasted until 1962.

All of that housing is from before 1990, and a home built or renovated before 1990 might contain asbestos. Latrobe City Council puts the local figure at nearly three in four homes, against one in three nationally. The national ban only came at the end of 2003.

Where to look first in an older Morwell house

The national householders' guide lists where asbestos can be found in a home built or renovated before 1990. Check these places before any renovation, re-roof or knock-down:

• Under the roofline. Gables, eaves and soffits, and the lining under the eaves; gutters and downpipes too. See walls, ceilings, eaves and bathrooms.
• The wet areas. Wall and ceiling sheeting in the kitchen, bathroom, toilet and laundry, and the backing behind wall tiles and splashbacks.
• Underfoot. Vinyl floor tiles, and the felt backing under vinyl and linoleum flooring.
• The roof and walls outside. Roof sheeting and ridge capping, and wall cladding, imitation brick cladding included.
• Out the back. The garage, carport, outhouse or garden shed, and the fence. See sheds and garages and fence removal.

None of that is a diagnosis. The only way to know is a sample of each suspect material tested by a NATA-accredited laboratory, and the testing page covers how one is taken.

When a licensed removalist takes the job

EPA's guideline puts household asbestos outside its transport rules unless a licensed removalist removed it, and commercial asbestos is listed as not accepted at Hyland Highway. A removalist's load goes to a site licensed to take it; ask which one and whether the tip fee is inside the quote. Ask for the Waste Tracker record at the end; EPA Victoria says that record can help protect you if the waste is not disposed of lawfully.

• Send photos through the form, and we keep your job on file and your details with us.

If you engage a licensed removalist:

• The quote names the material, the square metres, the licence class (Class B for bonded sheet, Class A for anything friable) and where the waste is going.
• WorkSafe is told first. At least five days before work starts for friable material or more than 10 square metres of bonded sheet; at least 24 hours before for a smaller bonded job.
• On the day, the waste is packed the way EPA's guideline sets out: the sheets kept wet, cutting and breaking kept to a minimum, then wrapped and taped in two layers of polythene about 0.2 millimetres thick.
• The sign-off. After friable work, or more than 10 square metres of bonded sheet, a clearance certificate from an independent person comes before anyone uses the area again.

Why Morwell takes it seriously

Each year people gather at the Morwell Rose Garden to remember those who have died from asbestos-related diseases in the Latrobe Valley; family members lay wreaths and place white crosses in the ground. A tidy, licensed job with the paperwork in order is the ordinary way to deal with it, and the cost guide shows what the published 2026 ranges look like.

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