Wittenoom and blue asbestos: the mining town behind the name
The name comes up often enough that it is worth explaining properly, separate from the crocidolite fibre it produced and separate from the Mr Fluffy case it sometimes gets confused with.
Wittenoom was a Western Australian mining town built around Australia's only commercial source of blue asbestos, or crocidolite, and it operated from the 1940s through to 1966.
The name still surfaces in asbestos searches decades later, mostly out of historical curiosity rather than because a house is likely to contain material traceable to it. This page explains what the mine actually was, and separates it from two things it often gets confused with: the crocidolite fibre itself, and the unrelated Mr Fluffy case.
What Wittenoom actually was
Blue asbestos was first recorded in the Hamersley Ranges of Western Australia in 1917, and mining began nearby at Yampire Gorge in 1943. The Wittenoom mine itself opened in 1947 and operated until 1958, with a third site, the Colonial mine, running until 1960. The associated townsite, established to house workers, existed from the 1940s and was Australia's sole supplier of blue asbestos between 1950 and 1966.
The company that ran it, Australian Blue Asbestos Ltd, mined and milled crocidolite fibre. It sold the fibre into Australian and export markets for the kinds of products covered elsewhere on this site, mainly cement pressure pipe, some insulation and gasket products, and older spray coatings.
Why the town no longer exists
The mine closed in 1966. The state government moved to close the town itself from 1978, and depopulation continued for decades as services were withdrawn. In 2007 Wittenoom was officially degazetted, removed from maps and place-name registers, the same year its electricity supply was disconnected.
The Shire of Ashburton has closed the roads leading into the most contaminated former mine sites. And both state and local government actively discourage visitors because of asbestos remnants still present in the area. It is not a place you can visit casually, and that is intentional.
By 2019, only three residents remained, the tail end of a decline that had been underway since the late 1970s rather than the result of any single event. That slow, deliberate depopulation is part of why later accounts tend to describe Wittenoom as a ghost town rather than simply a closed mine site.
Does the Wittenoom name tell you anything about a material in your own house?
Not directly, and that is the most common misunderstanding. Wittenoom fibre went into a range of products distributed across the country over roughly two decades. So a crocidolite-containing material somewhere in Australia might, in principle, trace back to that mine. There is no way to tell that from looking at a product, and it does not change anything about how the material is classified today.
What actually matters if you find blue-tinted material, or any material a laboratory confirms as crocidolite, is covered on the fibre types page. The classification and handling rules follow from whether the material is bonded or friable, not from which mine the original fibre came from.
Part of why the name keeps resurfacing is that Wittenoom is one of the few Australian asbestos stories attached to a place rather than a product. Cement sheet and vinyl backing are things you can point at in a house. A mine that no longer officially exists is something people search for out of curiosity about what happened to it. That search traffic has nothing to do with anyone's own home.
Wittenoom is not the Mr Fluffy case
The two get mixed up because both are well-known Australian asbestos stories with their own government registers and restricted-access history. They are otherwise unrelated. Wittenoom produced crocidolite through conventional mining and milling. Mr Fluffy refers to loose-fill amosite insulation blown into ceiling cavities in Canberra and parts of NSW in the 1960s and 70s, a manufactured insulation product, not a mine.
If you own a property in the ACT or parts of NSW built or renovated in that window, the register that matters is the loose-fill one, not anything to do with Wittenoom.
Where this fits with the rest of the site
This page exists because the name comes up in searches, not because it changes anything practical for a homeowner. If you have a material you suspect contains asbestos, start with identification and the bonded-versus-friable classification. If you are curious about the history behind the blue asbestos fibre itself, the fibre types page is the next stop.
Frequently asked questions
What was Wittenoom?
Wittenoom was a Western Australian town built to house workers at Australia's only commercial blue asbestos, or crocidolite, mine. It operated between the 1940s and 1966, and the associated townsite was officially degazetted and removed from maps in 2007.
Is Wittenoom still there?
The site has been removed from official place-name registers, and the Shire of Ashburton has closed roads into the most contaminated former mine areas. State and local government actively discourage visitors because of asbestos remnants still present.
Does Wittenoom asbestos mean anything different from other blue asbestos?
No. Wittenoom is the historical source of the crocidolite fibre, not a separate mineral or a different handling category. A crocidolite-containing material is classified and handled the same way regardless of which mine originally produced the fibre.
Is Wittenoom the same as the Mr Fluffy loose-fill case?
No. Wittenoom was a crocidolite mine in Western Australia. Mr Fluffy refers to loose-fill amosite insulation installed in ceilings in the ACT and parts of NSW. The two are unrelated except for both being well-known Australian asbestos cases with their own restricted-access history.
Does the Wittenoom name tell me anything about a material in my own house?
Not directly. There is no way to trace a specific material back to a particular mine by looking at it, and it would not change the classification if you could. Whether a confirmed crocidolite material is bonded or friable is what actually decides how it is handled.
Sources
What this page explains is based on these official sources. If you check one and it does not match what you read here, send it to us and the article gets corrected.
- Western Australian State Heritage Office. Old Wittenoom Townsite: heritage listing for the former blue-asbestos mining town
- Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency. Asbestos Product Guide. What products contained asbestos and where they were used