Consumption DIY, yes, but what is the asbestos risk? An app tells you

Banned for more than 20 years in France (July 1997), asbestos continues to wreak havoc in France with nearly 2,000 deaths per year and as many new cases of declared cancer.

Sunday handymen, future owners or professionals, it is advisable to take precautions before starting work in a building (drilling of partition, sanding, etc.), at the risk of releasing asbestos dust in the housing.

Launched at the end of 2020 by Jérôme Vergnolle, manager of the company Arobiz specializing in property control in Anglet (New-Aquitaine), Géoamiante aims to inform the general public about the asbestos risk in buildings.

"Asbestos is silent"

This application is based on a public database of 4 million referenced buildings: residential buildings, shops, offices, schools or individual houses. 81% are affected by an asbestos risk.

"Today, there is not necessarily the will of the government to make this information public, although it is essential. Asbestos is silent and has been used a lot in France. Our application is, I hope, a first step to make this information accessible", Jérôme Vergnolle explained to us.

And to add: "With the Covid-19 and the repeated confinements, we are all becoming a little do-it-yourselfers, but few people find out about the potential asbestos risk".

As a reminder, all constructions carried out before 1997 present a high asbestos risk. In the event of work, an asbestos detection (RAT) has been mandatory since July 16, 2019. If the latter is not carried out, the law provides in particular for the suspension of the construction site and an administrative fine of up to 9,000 euros.

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Asbestos in numbers

-1997: this is the year of the ban on the use of asbestos in France

-2 million workers are likely to be exposed to asbestos during interventions (roofing, plumbing, electricity, etc.)

-2000: this is the number of deaths per year in France linked to asbestos

-20,000 asbestos removal operations are carried out each year in our country

How it works ?

It is very simple. To use the Geoasbestos application, you must first download it to your smartphone from the Apple store (iOS) or Play Store (Android). Once installed, two options:

Geolocation, to find out if the building you are in was built before the ban on asbestos in France (1997) or manually enter the address concerned.

In a few seconds and depending on its year of construction, Géoamiante tells you if the building presents an asbestos risk in the event of work.

It will also allow you to make free contact with a diagnostician with asbestos certification near you to be advised on the procedure to follow. There are 7000 in France.

Finally, each user is able to feed the database, if he knows the date of issue of the building permit. To date, the app has over a thousand downloads.

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