For a short backstory on Wittenoom, an former asbestos mining town in remote Western Australia see this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3LDoI7H1Gc

I once worked with an environmental engineer who had a grandfather that worked at Wittenoom. He passed away due to mesothelioma, but her father who grew up there has not been affected, which is quite amazing given the circumstances. I have seen footage from Wittenoom of children playing in mounds of asbestos.

Today there are two general types of legacy asbestos products, friable and non-friable. Generally non-friable products such as asbestos-cement sheeting are considered safe to leave in place and are only dangerous when cut, broken or otherwise damaged. Friable products such as pipe lagging are very dangerous as they easily break down into fibers that can be inhaled.

It can be found in many old homes in odd places. I was removing some old putty around a window and a friend of mine who was an asbestos hygienist suggested that it could contain asbestos and took a sample for testing (all clear thankfully).

In another instance I worked on a demolition of a 1960's era multistory apartment complex. During construction of the concrete core walls the builder had used asbestos in the formwork, leaving some embedded in the wall at regular intervals. This meant that all of demolition waste was considered contaminated and was going to a special dump at a huge cost.

Finally, there was an infamous case in Canberra, Australia where a company called Mr Fluffy [1] installed loose friable asbestos as insulation in homes. A cleanup program in the 90's did not adequately fix the problem and so in 2014 the government finally purchased affected properties and demolished the houses.

Asbestos is bad stuff, but exposure causing mesothelioma seems to be a bit like Russian roulette. You might get it, you might not. But if you do, you will die.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Fluffy