Is plaster from an old Ottawa house regular renovation waste?

Plaster from a house built before 1990 is not automatically regular renovation waste, and the answer turns on whether it contains asbestos.

Health Canada lists plaster among older building materials that may contain asbestos, and Ontario's guide notes that asbestos was widely used in sprayed-on material and in pipe and boiler insulation until 1973, with many other asbestos-containing materials continuing in use until the mid-1980s. A lab test on a bulk sample is the way to know what your plaster contains. Under O. Reg. 278/05, a sample counts as asbestos-containing material at 0.5 per cent or more asbestos by dry weight.

If the plaster does contain asbestos, Ontario Regulation 347 applies to how the waste leaves your property. Section 17(1)1 says no person shall cause or permit asbestos waste to leave the location at which it is generated except to transport it to a waste disposal site whose operator has agreed to accept it and has been advised as to its anticipated time of arrival. The regulation sets out packaging requirements (a rigid, impermeable, sealed container of sufficient strength, or a six-mil polyethylene bag inside a cardboard box), specific label wording, and transport conditions including a driver trained in asbestos waste management. We found no exemption from section 17 for small or homeowner loads, and asbestos waste cannot go out with curbside garbage or in a regular bin. The City of Ottawa also says plaster, drywall and other renovation or demolition waste is not collected with regular garbage.

If the plaster tests negative for asbestos, the City's renovation-waste rules are the ones to follow. If you are unsure which rules apply to your specific load, ask the contractor or check with the City of Ottawa.

On the abatement side, the Type of work the contractor must follow under O. Reg. 278/05 depends on whether the plaster is friable and how much area is disturbed. That is assessed on site, not from a description. A Type 3 job, which involves more than one square metre of friable asbestos-containing material, requires the employer to notify a Ministry of Labour inspector before work starts, and workers and supervisors must have completed the Ministry-approved training programs before the work begins. Section 12(5) of the regulation says work is classified by the total area disturbed consecutively in a room, even if the job is split into smaller pieces.

After the job is done, keep the lab report showing what the plaster contained, the written Type the contractor assessed, and the clearance air test results if Type 3 work was done. Section 18 of O. Reg. 278/05 requires the owner to keep a copy of those clearance results for at least one year.