I still don't understand how, in 2023, we don't have processes in place that allow for the safe production of these products. Like, aren't most of these products built to order in a factory?
Here's the report itself if anyone wants to read it.
[https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-10/uni\_adelaide\_engineered\_stone\_report\_october2023.pdf](https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-10/uni_adelaide_engineered_stone_report_october2023.pdf)
Basically a meta study of a range of other studies and attempts a conclusion without really digging into each specific study.
Telling is the fact that there is a section on control measures that proper mitigations are possible if followed (page 19). Seems like a ban on any dry processing and finishing of any sort would have been a more reasonable step than an outright ban.
Perhaps an actual mason can chime in on practicalities of this.
Not a stonemason, but having worked in manufacturing settings for many years including supervising others, enforcing the use of PPE is a constant and unending battle. Unless the process can be designed so that circumventing safety measures is impossible (e.g., sheet metal presses that don’t function while the guards aren’t in place) then those safety measures will at least occasionally be circumvented.
The best and most effective method of controlling a hazard is to eliminate it, so given the known consequences of improperly cutting engineered stone while alternatives exist this is a no brainer.
Yep. I’m a cabinetmaker but nearly every stone guy I’ve worked with will just take a slab out the back and grind it down if it doesn’t fit. Sometimes a mask others not but the worst thing is they don’t care about where it ends up for other people
When I went and did the course, the thing that hit me the hardest was the opening line of the guy running it….”show of hands who goes home and hugs their kids and wife in their work clothes?, show of hands who’s kids sit in the same vehicle that your work clothes have transferred dust to the car seats?”
Devastating .
Was it 100%?
Interesting thing when I studied occupational and public health, that it was often wives (who did the washing) who would get the brunt of dust diseases/interstitial ling diseases—or that they got them just from washing their husbands’ clothes.
Real tragedy and totally cooked that things are the way they are, and that you can have these extremely sick, home oxygen-dependent 20–30-year-olds or 20–30-year-olds requiring lung transplants (not for, say, CF but because of this).
I live on the third floor of an apartment building, and when the apartment was below me undergoing a kitchen renovation, they where cutting it on the lawn below and I could see clouds of dust going past my kitchen window and balcony. Although I believe the workers was wearing a must knowing that the dust could be dangerous I was annoyed that is was flying everywhere.
One which I came across through my work was safety restraints in bucket trucks. The client wanted an RFID based solution so that the machine would only operate if the restraint was hooked up.
Then mandate appropriate control measures with enforcement or you are not permitted to operate? If the costs of this outweigh the pricier alternatives, then so be it, the market will take care of this.
If individual workers can't be arsed to protect their own health then why are they blaming anyone other than themselves? Not suggesting this is whats happening here but in direct reference to your first hand experience in enforcing PPE use.
Every material, job and process has risks. It sets awful policy making precedent to ban something when control measures are available but not adequately enforced.
Banning something should be an absolute last resort absent other practical alternatives.
Not every worker is as empowered or informed as that, so it's not simply workers being (or not being) arsed protecting themselves. So many young workers or apprentices get told to essentially "man up" and do dangerous work, not use PPE, just quickly get something resolved etc.
So many supervisors will push for unsafe practices so they can make a quicker dollar, and it's often hard for young or junior staff to stand up to them. The culture around safety is improving, but not on every crew.
Becauae in Australia it is employers responsibility to enforce a safe work and health environment.
So even if an individual doesn’t wear their PPE even with all the processes and equipment provided for the job. The employer will still get into trouble and pay hefty fines.
This is our generation's asbestos. Engineered stone is not the only problematic product but it has an outsize effect. Half the time, natural stone which is much safer is only marginally more expensive anyway, or even less depending on the job
And if you don’t wear a seat belt in a car accident you are significantly higher risk of injury. Why kill an industry just because people won’t use PPE properly? As outlined above there are many steps that could have been taken before getting to a total ban. They didn’t even try. Screams of a govt beholden to the CFMEU.
There were similar arguments about the use of asbestos but by and large people recognise a total ban was appropriate, and I can spend hours talking about the ways workplace culture can leave individual workers less safe even when they would prefer doing things differently.
Is it more important that homeowners have one specific option among many different types of benchtops, or that the workers who prepare and install them can go to work with an expectation their lungs won’t turn to stone?
I don’t believe the choice is death of workers or engineered stone. You can have stone and healthy workers with good safety standards that are adhered too.
Great example would be banning in home cutting. If it’s pre-cut in a purpose built facility which has appropriate airflow systems, where’s the risk to the worker? Your asbestos example doesn’t apply because that continues to degrade and can be easily made airborne by homeowners. The risk with engineered stone is only when being cut.
>The risk with engineered stone is only when being cut.
How to control the use of the product once it's outside the factory? There is always going to be operators who receive the product and find that it needs to be modified on-site to fit. How is that controlled?
How is the product treated at end of life? How do future home-owners or workers identify a product that could be dangerous of cut?
And anyone that's worked in a trade or with trades knows they are going to spend 5 minutes on site making it fit rather than send it back and wait weeks to months for another bench top.
And the same people in here that are saying you can do this or that and don't have to ban it outright will be the first to throw a hissy fit when a trade refuses to make a "quick adjustment" and wants to send the bench top back to the factory.
Half these people in here have never worked in a trade/factory environment and know the social/managerial/customer/time pressures that negatively affect worker safety.
Because ppe is a last resort not a primary control. Don’t worry the people being forced to work with these benches aren’t shedding tears they are about to get paid as much or more to work on safer products.
So when a family member decides to demolish the top and get a new one not knowing the minimum ppe requirements and gets silicosis, you are happy with that?
I guess the problem also comes down to the diyer or dodgy plumber who is installing a new filter tap that just drills through it years after install. Or the renovation 20 years later where they just cut through it to make demolition easier.
Could easily see safety precautions not being followed for after market services like sink and cooktop installs.
Don't quote me on this but I read that 1 in 4 people who worked with this stuff ended up with health complications from it. If that's true that's absolutely fucked and the time to act is now. Banning it is the right call.
It's like asbestos. If you cut it on a controlled environment, wear respiratory protection and dispose of it properly it can be perfectly safe. Unfortunately manu people won't do this.
In the end these products are really harmful and we don't need to be using them. That's a good enough reason for me.
Yep. Let's be serious - asbestos had more of a practical reason to be used than this stuff. Except for the danger it was quite frankly a brilliant product. There are many different things we can use to build a frigging kitchen bench though that don't pose this danger.
Are uses joking. F/me, do you work in construction?
Do do the job properly and safely it cost so much.
But then Muhammad Abdul haroof Ahmed Akbar my friend quotes half that price and has no safely in place and does dry cutting to save money and has that young kid on the study visa cutting it and everyone in the work area is effected.
And a different story is the dust just gets tripped in the bin, and then forklift drive gets it empty it.
Then the trip people get it.
Then blow around for everyone else.
I like it when then swap it off the edge over the office workers.
Wh3n was the last time you saw it double bag and put in the right bin.
10 years plus construction and sad to say ever.
Because the dust is still there, it still sprays everywhere. It still eventually dries out and poses a risk, whether it's kicked up off the floor or scraped up from a machine catch or just left to go wherever it goes.
A friends son worked with this product. All the safety procedures and PPE was not used because the boss of the company thought it was stupid and told people not to follow any of the rules or wear the PpE. My friends son has silicosis because of the culture of the workplace, not the material.
aromatic placid repeat screw rainstorm disgusting marble handle quickest desert
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This is an incredibly dumb take, unlike asbestos, engineered stone at its finished state is not a health hazard.
Edit: did… did above just edited his words to make them less dumb? Lol
Asbestos in it's finished state is safe too. That's why we leave it in place and marked to not be disturbed.
Because that's when you get the deaths.
And as with asbestos, the benches will eventually be moved, potentially recut by people such as yourself, with limited understanding and unlimited overestimation of knowledge. That's why we don't put it back in.
I understand asbestos are banned because inadvertent exposure alone is dangerous. But according to your earlier comment, we or our kids will attempt to cut our own engineered stone bench tops?
REALLY?
Now this is just a bad faith argument trying to muddy up the issue.
Most DIY people won't touch it unlike asbestos products. The equipment to cut stone and polish it isn't cheap or easy.
I'm not saying that it shouldn't be banned, but we have the WHS Act that is meant to handle safety. Why hasn't anyone gone after the companies that aren't managing the risks.
The problem is in many of the factories. Plenty of the shops that cut engineered stone flaunt saftey rules and endanger workers.
Rarley is the stone actually cut on building sites.
Yeah they’re made in a factory, by workers with shit or negligible PPE.
From the article it appears like they don’t think there are any processes which are safe.
Maybe there’s not? Isn’t asbestos dangerous no matter how little you breathe in? Even if you wore a mask, it’s still on your clothes after you leave work
I was talking to a medical researcher about it a few years back and she said the silicosis mortality timeline was up to twenty times faster than asbestosis. Turns out breathing rock is bad for your lungs.
A receptionist in the office of a factory was diagnosed with silicosis at about 23 yo after working there for about 3 years. Never set foot on the factory floor
It can be perfectly safe to use, cut and work with these products. Automation, wet/water cutting, dust masks etc. There are also workplace exposure limits that are appropriate (measured amount of dust in air that means you don't need ppe).
The issue is with following and enforcing the rules. Sad but true. Lots of small, medium business that just don't have good health and safety programs.
While I'm on the soapbox this is the same issue with house building in Australia, we have good codes and regulations, just no one enforces or follows the rules.
Of course there is, and there has been since the late 90's.
non compliance is the problem.
"
However, it is tolerably clear that historically there has been insufficient compliance activities in respect of the engineered stone industry for the level of risk. Further, there has been, and continues to be, non-compliance with the obligations imposed by the model WHS laws, by both PCBUs and workers.
"
Here is a quote from a [news.com](https://news.com).au
[https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/engineered-stone-the-new-asbestos-killing-aussie-tradies/news-story/7c75c18771ed2c5cc5e3a164640107ff](https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/engineered-stone-the-new-asbestos-killing-aussie-tradies/news-story/7c75c18771ed2c5cc5e3a164640107ff)
"More than 70 cases are before Australian courts. Workers, many on oxygen tanks or needing lung transplants, insist they were never warned about how dangerous the material they worked with could be."
With so much such an extreme out come from working with it, it absolutely should be banned.
What about actual stone? All the people working in quarries today, or cutting concrete..
They'll all be similarly affected, but there will never be a ban on them.
There are plenty of dangerous products that need to be handled correctly. Engineered stone is no exception.
Levels of silica vary wildly. Engineered stone is usually around 95% silica, marble is like 1% sandstone around 25%. Concrete is usually around 30%. There is still a lot les silica going into lungs. If you look at the a.c.t they have mandatory silica training to try and improve compliance with all stone products. I suspect other states will follow at some point
It’s not even as simple as the percent silica, it’s also the type of silica.
Engineered stone is comprised of mostly crushed quartz, which is pure crystalline silica. When cut it produces a much finer respirable dust than say granite would when cut.
It's not so much the banning of this or any other product I'm in support of, it's the fact businesses use products or have practices that injure and kill workers. I can't imagine the heartache that these families are going through, if banning this spares others from this fate than that is a good thing.
Like, people get cancer. If the cost triples because it needs that much money to be safe, would you, like, pay it? I cant believe that in 2023 people, like, think they know everything
Its harsh on the placers that have invested in a safe way to cut it to now just be banned from using it. tens of thousands of dollars invested for nothing.
Those places that have invested I promise you at some point had unsafe practices. Having been a shareholder in one company I wad disgusted at the 'investment' for safer practices was actually linked to faster production lines being the main drivers. I have been told there is now currently 4 previosus workers with Silcosis from the earlier years.
I think the industry was expecting proper laws around cutting stone. Was even a shop on one of the TV programmes in the last few weeks showing off their new safe stone cutter. Banning engineered stone when the same problem exists with real stone is kinda strange.
Not true.
There were always proper laws in place. Workplaces MUST provide a safe place to work.
It's more dangerous than regular stone because of the much smaller crystal/particle size.
I used to work with it. Cutting it dry on a regular table saw. Trimming it with a router. Dust everywhere. I wore a respirator because I could see it wouldn't be good. I'm glad I did after all this came out.
None too many other people did..
You say that and it's probbaly true but you try to convince a old tradie who smokes like a chimney to take better care of his lungs. That's the people I was dealing with.
Try working in any outback scenario knowing that you are now potentially exposed to silicosis due to the natural dust in the environment and calling them brain dead…
There is a time and place but now is the time for expanding knowledge and awareness not sledging of people that have suffered
And where did all the dust go? Do you have vacuums that collect it so it can be disposed of (I assume the only safe way would be to wet the dust and then glue it all together?), or does it just blow away to be someone else's problem? Were others in the vicinity, not wearing respirators, at risk?
The table saw had a vacume for collecting sawdust, it was disposed of with the rest of the sawdust in the same bag. That collected some. Potentially yes they were, weather they realise it or not I couldn't say. They weren't the type to take personal safety too seriously.
Cuz a bunch of fuck wit “PPE is for pussies” stone cutters there is now no affordable option for this style, unless the market comes up with something new.
That’s so bourgeois and out of touch. The cheap customers and builders force them to not have extractor fans, sealed rooms and empty construction sites.
So what’s the alternative for kitchen Renos? Natural stone is too expensive and laminate is cheap garbage.
I see some suggesting to treat it with more caution but I’m guessing that’ll just cause the price to go up defeating the purpose of using it begin with.
Nothing.
People are saying polished concrete - but WTF difference is that to engineered stone at the end of the day?
Honestly if you want it to be good you're probably going to have to go for natural stone - then you'll get super pissed when it stains and absorbs anything wet you leave on it
Corian, dekton, laminate, wood, stainless steel, natural stone, porcelain. There are lots of different options. I’m a fan of Corian myself. Look up CASF and have a read about it.
Natural stone, porcelain and sintered stone are already on the market. I don't care what people are saying, natural stone does not have to be more expensive. Can it be? Certainly.
In 2024, depending on the definition of "engineered stone", there's a zero silica alternative ready to go.
Wow - the number of people that seem happy for ‘someone else’ to take on the risk of a slow painful death for a benchtop…
The first step in the hierarchy of controls is ‘eliminate the hazard’, the last being ‘wear PPE’. I don’t see ‘maximise profit for shareholders’ which is where we went with asbestos. Seems a pretty obvious choice for a product that isn’t essential.
It’s because 99% of the people on Reddit haven’t ever worked blue collar. Look at all the dumb shit you see in this sub alone.
Everyone knows that if your sole control between death or not is PPE, you’ve fucked up and reached the bottom of the hierarchy.
But PPE is the benchmark to prevent virtually every work-related medical illness when the causative agent is identified. Sawdust in the lungs isn't good either. Has anyone heard of that being banned?
PPE in trades is supposed to be a last resort to save your life, unlike say medicine, where PPE is necessary to prevent the spread of disease between patients, clinicians, nurses etc.
Step one is always remove the problem, in this case engineered stone is a dangerous product and needs to be banned, the requirements to work with it safely are impractical and you can’t rely on either employers or employees to safely handle it.
if a client has a benchtop delivered to site that is 20mm out, you’re going to dry cut on site to make it fit so you don’t lose your next job which could be $20k+ down the drain.
Engineered stone is worse than asbestos for the people working on it, you can’t reverse silicosis and way too many young people are affected
> PPE in trades is supposed to be a last resort to save your life, unlike say medicine, where PPE is necessary to prevent the spread of disease between patients, clinicians, nurses etc.
Sorry this comparison seems to suggest that the spread of disease does not involve getting negative effects of the disease, which include death.
> Step one is always remove the problem, in this case engineered stone is a dangerous product and needs to be banned, the requirements to work with it safely are impractical and you can’t rely on either employers or employees to safely handle it.
Silicosis is the [most common](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis#Epidemiology) occupational lung disease worldwide. Beside engineered stone, other environments where silicosis can occur [include](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis#Occupational_silicosis)
> construction, railroad, demolition, mining, sandblasting, quarry, tunnelling, ceramics and foundry workers, as well as grinders, stone cutters, stone countertops, refractory brick workers, tombstone workers, workers in the oil and gas industry, pottery workers, fiberglass manufacturing, glass manufacturing, flint knappers and others.
so why home in on one industry? What about the mines?
> if a client has a benchtop delivered to site that is 20mm out, you’re going to dry cut on site to make it fit so you don’t lose your next job which could be $20k+ down the drain.
This is not solved by banning things. This is solved by having strong worker's rights.
> Engineered stone is worse than asbestos for the people working on it, you can’t reverse silicosis and way too many young people are affected
Asbestosis cannot be reversed, yet people still work with them with respect to removal and demolitions. Are these individuals part of an epidemic of asbestosis and mesothelioma? I don't know how you can say silicosis is worse than asbestosis, they are both bad conditions in their own way.
Is English your second language, because you’re a fucking moron if it isn’t.
They didn’t hone in on one industry, sandblasting has been banned for years, and we can’t eliminate mining from our economy, so in that case the last resort is necessary. This has been a long ongoing process, and the only reason you’ve heard about it outside the trades is because the cost of saving lives is making your bench more expensive.
For your workers rights issue, the government actually did a huge amount of research into this looking for a way to regulate the industry and they essentially found that nobody in the chain could be relied on to enforce proper safety 100% of the time, and because the risks are so high with this stuff the decision was made to ban rather than wasting resources enforcing compliance measures.
And the reason we still work with asbestos is because we can’t stop, there are hundreds of thousands of houses made of the stuff in this country and we can’t just let them rot or the problems get worse. And there are a few minor
Uses of the stuff that it is necessary for, but the industry that uses it is so small it’s enforceable.
Overall though, based on my personal experience being in construction, 60% plus of all tradies are fucking dumb, like actual mouth breathing monkeys, they think PPE is for pussies and bully smart, safe co workers into not using it, in that environment it just isn’t practical to enforce safety measures. Another big issue is south East Asian workers coming in for below minimum wage, and not understanding their rights and destroying their lungs to send money home to their families, every time I see them I get a bit sad thinking that their boss is taking advantage of them.
>Is English your second language, because you’re a fucking moron if it isn’t.
This is amazing, and exactly sums up my thoughts on this posters comments.
LOL starting with personal insults. What a man-child.
> we can’t eliminate mining from our economy, so in that case the last resort is necessary.
So basically because engineered stone isn't a big money maker, and mining is, the lives of miners are expendable. I hear you loud and clear.
And then you say that no one can be trusted to enforce PPE. Which means that your comment about the last resort in mining is moot, and that miners are expendable.
If tradies are dumb and refuse to follow rules and regulations, then they should wear the consequences of their actions. If they won't use PPE for engineered stone, they won't use PPE for all the other things that cause occupational disease, and there are many. But I guess home building, renovations, and mining are too important for the economy, right?
Yea I don't see why so many people leap to defend engineered stone. It only looks slightly less cheap than laminate.
This is like getting annoyed that CFCs got banned from refrigerants or forever chemicals were banned from plastic bottles. I'm sure an alternative material will come into style.
I think deep down people don't wanna be told an industry they supported gave 700 workers silicosis. The same way no one likes being confronted with the meat industry or who is making their clothes.
I'm less interested in the looks of engineered stone and more interested in the strength.
If you get a chip or crack in an MDF benchtop it's ugly as hell will have a slow death from moisture. No such issues with engineered stone.
It is a vastly superior product for bench tops.
Time to put my order in before the ban....
Good thing all the proposed alternatives will *checks notes* cause long term health effects if not prepared using appropriate PPE
4 of the 6 suggestions contain silicates and in the case of concrete, tile, and porcelain, these materials are routinely dry cut on site.
Natural stone can have excessive amounts of silicates depending in the sand content of the quarry it’s extracted from. I saw one slab of natural Italian marble at CDK stone that had 98% silicate content.
2 of the suggestions will have manufacturing processes that cause health issues
Laminates are generally bonded to MDF which needs PPE to cut and requires bonding processes using high VOC glues that also need PPE to apply
Hardwoods like Tasmanian blackwood and walnut also have carcinogen risks when cutting and inhaling the find dust from the wood
Even if you do stainless steel, it’ll be bonded to MDF or particle board in a similar fashion to laminates so the same risks around cutting and gluing apply.
And if you’re using wood products as a raw material such as for splash backs, infills, or cabinet doors, then application of conversion varnishes and two pack paints will have high VOC exposure for the worker doing the finishing, also necessitating PPE and special production facilities.
Silica alone is not the issue. Saying X has Y% silica is not the argument when evidence suggests that cutting engineered stone generates higher concentrations of respirable crystalline silica when compared to cutting natural stone, even when silica content by weight is the same.
Here are a couple of studies, but there are many;
* [Engineered Stone Fabrication Work Releases Volatile Organic Compounds Classified as Lung Irritants](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9923029/)
* [Silicosis in finishing workers in quartz conglomerates processing](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7810008/)
Reading through that first study suggests that the actual silicate content is the least harmful part of exposure, and rather the bonding agents and resins are either toxic in their own right or aid in suspending the silicate content, which leads to a higher chance of ingestion.
So really, it’s more about the overall chemical composition of the stone than the silicate content itself.
Holy sheesh, it seems like everything causes or is associated with badness. Kinda makes me think of all the home projects the family — including the old man — have done, how many with masks, how many with effective masks (unsure if oldish/reused masks are effective enough, or how old they can be). 🤔
There’s a lot of comments here from people who do not work in this industry.
Even if a factory has wet cutting processes in place and state of the art dust suppression systems- the stuff still has to be trimmed out on site - where there is no such safety processes in place. Then it gets ground and the dust is then airborne.
There comments here: “employers should provide safe workplaces” - that’s fantasy land bullshit. The building industry and the bosses don’t give a flying f**k. It’s full of cowboys and largely completely unregulated. Plus it is dominated by small businesses and sole traders anyway.
Take asbestos- there are still halfwits who remove it without masks, proper clothing and who grind it. That’s despite all the media publicity.
The stone is dangerous, there is no safe level of exposure and idiots and innocent subcontractors, need to be kept safe.
The bans have not come soon enough.
Every second comment in this sub about any home alteration is get more quotes and force tradies to cut corners to win jobs but in this post they are all supporting paying more.
People who back getting multiple quotes are generally armchair experts.
From a tradesman’s point of view, domestic customers that want small work done and a quote as well are a nuisance, it’s a waste of time. That’s the truth of the matter.
Fair enough, however the tradies themselves have to take some responsibility with safe practices and PPE rather than bosses not giving a fuck. Masks are cheap, wear them.
Anyone with on-site experience knows full well they don’t and won’t wear them, plus the issue of other trades on-site who are in the vicinity.
If u are referring to paper masks, they are fundamentally useless.
I'm not referring to paper masks, they are useless. Plenty of well fitting cartridge filter masks, half and full face, available and don't cost much at all.
And therein lies the real problem, a culture of refusal to wear proper PPE. The sick tradies can cry all they want, but if they were complicit in their illness when knowing full well there were risks then one could say too bad too sad.
How do you trim a bench top on site safely? Sure wearing a mask will stop you inhaling dust whilst you trim, but what about the other trades that will be exposed? What about when you or your partner washes your clothes?
Lots of placers use computer controlled cutters. That should of been the legislation. Silly work safe have over extended. Natural stone causes the same problems.
The issue is the last minute adjustments on site to get the products to fit. Thus exposing not only the stone worker but anyone else on the site that day
Probably the same amount as when asbestos got banned 20 years ago. Seems the industry had no problem switching to the next lung disease material since, and whatever alternative they come up with next.
Not to mention these [manufacturers were lobbying to stop the ban](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-30/silicosis-ban-on-engineered-stone-in-kitchens-bathrooms/103031768), while repeatedly breaching laws and regulations already in place. Companies that were under surveillance in several states continued to breach said laws. They definitely weren't blindsided with this, and there is a transition period with the ban.
They aren't solely to blame of course, importers also do not do enough to disclose the health risks of their products, and there is not a lot of awareness/education available for tradies until recently.
Pot, kettle? Seriously, if putting the lives of workers over company profits is obnoxious then oh well.
In 2019, there were 12,000 silicosis deaths worldwide. Sure, only a few are in Australia, but 230 people a year in Australia are getting lung cancer from silicosis... How many companies make manufactured stone?
It's a straight comparison to asbestos, and if you believe it isn't, then let's hope no one you know works in the industry.
Not sure why people are downvoting this.
Im a plumber in the industry who spent his apprenticeship cutting out engineered stone holes for sinks and cooktops, god knows what’s in me… safety should always come before profit. Silicosis is multiple 10 fold more dangerous than asbestos, young blokes will continue to be subjected to this shit if there’s no radical change.
Sick of the ausfinance nerds that migrated across to here to get tips on painting their light switches, many of you don’t know how it is in the field.
Does anyone know what other western countries do ?
It seems like an overreaction to me. Seriously if they are worried about people's health (when they should be using PPE) why the fuck don't they ban smoking ...
My guess, and it's just a guess... smoking IS banned in alot of places, depending on which state you're in. It's also an addiction and there is also alot of tax picked up from tobacco (and alcohol which also kills). I don't think anyone is addicted to engineered stone.
I’m a stonemason and the media has absolutely taken this for a ride and putting thousands and thousands of people out of a job.
Yes, silicosis is real and dangerous but it’s controlled, here in Victoria you need to be licensed by worksafe to cut, sell, operate with engineered stone. If worksafe catches you making dust on-site or in a factory without the proper equipments and safety in place you would get reamed with a monster fine. Yes, there are cowboys still out there doing the wrong things that would bomb a house full of dust. Shutting down a whole industry shouldn’t be the solution.
Before silicosis was being made aware of factories would be covered in dust, you couldn’t see more than 2 meters in front of you. These days you need to cut wet, you need to wear a respirator even with the water. All the major brands, caeserstone, silestone, stoneambassador, smartstone etc. all have low silica products.
The media are hanging onto what was happening 15 years ago. Yes it sucks, I feel horrible for the lack of awareness they had back in the day but it’s not how it was. I am extremely lucky that my co-workers, me, 90% of stonemasons in Victoria doing the right thing are being safe and being looked after.
What they don’t tell you concrete has 40% silica, ceramic tiles have 40% silica, natural stones- granite, marble, quartzite range between 10-90% silica.
The porcelain alternative has 20% silica.
Surely concrete to be banned next?!
Too many people (and companies) weren't doing the right thing. Call it 15% of the industry, but it's led to too many deaths and the ship has sailed, there's no putting it back together.
Regarding natural stone; Scientific evidence suggests that cutting engineered stone generates higher concentrations of respirable crystalline silica when compared to cutting natural stone, even when silica content by weight is the same.
Here are a couple of studies, but there are many;
* [Engineered Stone Fabrication Work Releases Volatile Organic Compounds Classified as Lung Irritants](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9923029/)
* [Silicosis in finishing workers in quartz conglomerates processing](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7810008/)
Wa this year (2023):
Friend did renos, stipulated in contract, no stone cutting on site, and absolutely not in the house.
Kitchen measured up to the mm. And checked.
They came home early, and there was the installer, with an angle grider covering the whole house in dust. Mate was pissed their 6mo's nursery was covered in it.
They booted the guy out, and are now being sued as "that practice is standard," never mind the contract and going over the installation stipulations.
Its ridiculous that they ban this. But you can still use and cut hebel, mdf, natural stone and so many more. Just regulate it better? Bigger fines and more information
I laugh at their list of alternative materials.
Stone already exists and is expensive. Higher demand will make it more expensive.
Porcelain? For a bathroom vanity but not a kitchen bench.
Tiles? That's funny. There's a reason why they faded into obscurity during the 80s.
Laminate already makes up a great deal of the bench tops used.
Timber? Well, with the impending ban on native hardwood logging in Victoria, that's going to make that more challenging, let alone the extra work required to prepare and maintain its going to make that unpalatable, let alone the aesthetic trends being against it.
People fail to wear PPE all the time; dust masks/respirators, eye protection, hearing protection, gloves etc. This is another case of people meeting the outcomes of their choices.
Stupid but inevitable outcome.
I’d like to see the breakdown of silicosis cases by employer. I’d wager that cases are concentrated to irresponsible operators who did not follow proper handling and safety guidelines.
I feel sympathy for those who were exploited by irresponsible employers, and the responsible employers who made significant investments into safe fabrication practices that will now become redundant.
Lazy / under-resourced inspectorate. Same with the legislators. Dodgy small businesses & vulnerable or wilfully slack tradies. It’s not really like the old JHI asbestos products issue .. we don’t really hear much about the manufacturers’ staff getting dusted. Cynical approach to preventing dust inspiration. And natural stone is most popularly “granite” with a xstalline silica content >60%. Can’t see much difference in the risk from dry cutting for that to a manufactured silica slab with say 90% silica.
The issue isn’t so much the manufacturing, it’s the dry cutting in homes that is the really hard to control bit.
Ultimately this is all of us paying the price for idiots who don’t use PPE. It’s like banning cars because some people don’t wear seat belts.
And the real outcome will be a bunch of DIYers trying to cut stuff at home themselves I reckon. Even worse.
https://preview.redd.it/3mr5muctr66c1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd88b43f4dc9ef763b0bc70cbe1b3638f9474579
Here is our engineered stone getting cut to size out back, with another guy with a blower vac just blowing particles far and wide. This was several years ago but I don’t think much has changed.
The tradies choose not to wear any PPE. Tile cutting is similar I would imagine. We had a tiler at our place recently cutting porcelain tiles without any mask on at all.
It’s a bit like banning electricity because you could get electrocuted if installing it incorrect. We had kitchen installed a couple of years back. Slabs came in pre cut from factory, where all safety precautions are in place. Any cuts on site were done with wet saws/grinders/drills, no dust. Honestly it seems ludicrous and it seems like a reasonably sustainable product.
Fuck Australia is embarrassing.
We literally ban things because our population is too stupid to do it safely.
We can't regulate sensibly and say "cut it via robots in controlled factories" - oh no, because some fuckwit is going to cut it themselves so we ban it nationwide.
We do these bans all the time in this country and it's utterly embarrassing and so fucking frustrating.
Asbestos is very different. For the simple reason that homeowners can easily disturb asbestos and make it hazardous.
It is much harder to disturb stone.
It’s weird because smoking is also dangerous but it is also still legal to sell them. Engineered stones are not the only one that contains silica which causes silicosis and there are so many other products other there but they specifically targeted engineered stone
Considering that I just had a roofer do work on my roof without PPE that the law stipulates, I would hazard a guess that a lot of the silicosis was caused by a lack of PPE. There are so many industries that require PPE (in one form or another) and we don't hear about them being banned. A bit of a heavy handed way to address something that PPE and good ventilation would prevent.
Let's ban cars because of dangerous drivers too. They kill innocent victims when irresponsible people operate them in appropriately. So yeah, let's ban them.
Hell forbids we have H&S requirements that are actually enforced with business owners accountable for it.
FFS Australia, i love you, but sometimes you really are dumb.
Section 19 work place safety act 2020
A person conducting a business or undertaking must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the health and safety of other persons is not put at risk from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking.
This is law, the stats show that current controls are not practicable and are killing workers.
So this ban IS enforcing the act.
I still don't understand how, in 2023, we don't have processes in place that allow for the safe production of these products. Like, aren't most of these products built to order in a factory?
Yeah , I find it weird they weren’t able to just apply the ban for it to be cut onsite, but still allow wet cutting in a safe environment
This makes zero sense. How do you get dust from wet cutting in a controlled environment?
Here's the report itself if anyone wants to read it. [https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-10/uni\_adelaide\_engineered\_stone\_report\_october2023.pdf](https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-10/uni_adelaide_engineered_stone_report_october2023.pdf) Basically a meta study of a range of other studies and attempts a conclusion without really digging into each specific study. Telling is the fact that there is a section on control measures that proper mitigations are possible if followed (page 19). Seems like a ban on any dry processing and finishing of any sort would have been a more reasonable step than an outright ban. Perhaps an actual mason can chime in on practicalities of this.
Not a stonemason, but having worked in manufacturing settings for many years including supervising others, enforcing the use of PPE is a constant and unending battle. Unless the process can be designed so that circumventing safety measures is impossible (e.g., sheet metal presses that don’t function while the guards aren’t in place) then those safety measures will at least occasionally be circumvented. The best and most effective method of controlling a hazard is to eliminate it, so given the known consequences of improperly cutting engineered stone while alternatives exist this is a no brainer.
Yep. I’m a cabinetmaker but nearly every stone guy I’ve worked with will just take a slab out the back and grind it down if it doesn’t fit. Sometimes a mask others not but the worst thing is they don’t care about where it ends up for other people
[удалено]
When I went and did the course, the thing that hit me the hardest was the opening line of the guy running it….”show of hands who goes home and hugs their kids and wife in their work clothes?, show of hands who’s kids sit in the same vehicle that your work clothes have transferred dust to the car seats?” Devastating .
Was it 100%? Interesting thing when I studied occupational and public health, that it was often wives (who did the washing) who would get the brunt of dust diseases/interstitial ling diseases—or that they got them just from washing their husbands’ clothes. Real tragedy and totally cooked that things are the way they are, and that you can have these extremely sick, home oxygen-dependent 20–30-year-olds or 20–30-year-olds requiring lung transplants (not for, say, CF but because of this).
Holy crap I never thought of that.
Yeah the amount of times my kids smacked my car seats and laughed at the dust.
I live on the third floor of an apartment building, and when the apartment was below me undergoing a kitchen renovation, they where cutting it on the lawn below and I could see clouds of dust going past my kitchen window and balcony. Although I believe the workers was wearing a must knowing that the dust could be dangerous I was annoyed that is was flying everywhere.
Annoyed? I'd be fucking livid.
Elimination is the top of the hierarchy of control for a reason
One which I came across through my work was safety restraints in bucket trucks. The client wanted an RFID based solution so that the machine would only operate if the restraint was hooked up.
Then mandate appropriate control measures with enforcement or you are not permitted to operate? If the costs of this outweigh the pricier alternatives, then so be it, the market will take care of this. If individual workers can't be arsed to protect their own health then why are they blaming anyone other than themselves? Not suggesting this is whats happening here but in direct reference to your first hand experience in enforcing PPE use. Every material, job and process has risks. It sets awful policy making precedent to ban something when control measures are available but not adequately enforced. Banning something should be an absolute last resort absent other practical alternatives.
Not every worker is as empowered or informed as that, so it's not simply workers being (or not being) arsed protecting themselves. So many young workers or apprentices get told to essentially "man up" and do dangerous work, not use PPE, just quickly get something resolved etc. So many supervisors will push for unsafe practices so they can make a quicker dollar, and it's often hard for young or junior staff to stand up to them. The culture around safety is improving, but not on every crew.
Becauae in Australia it is employers responsibility to enforce a safe work and health environment. So even if an individual doesn’t wear their PPE even with all the processes and equipment provided for the job. The employer will still get into trouble and pay hefty fines.
Employees still have duties to take reasonable care for the health and safety for themselves and others under WHS/OHS laws as well
This is our generation's asbestos. Engineered stone is not the only problematic product but it has an outsize effect. Half the time, natural stone which is much safer is only marginally more expensive anyway, or even less depending on the job
concrete has the same amount of silica and concrete is cut dailiy on site. They can't ban concrete though.
There’s still plenty of cowboys.
And if you don’t wear a seat belt in a car accident you are significantly higher risk of injury. Why kill an industry just because people won’t use PPE properly? As outlined above there are many steps that could have been taken before getting to a total ban. They didn’t even try. Screams of a govt beholden to the CFMEU.
There were similar arguments about the use of asbestos but by and large people recognise a total ban was appropriate, and I can spend hours talking about the ways workplace culture can leave individual workers less safe even when they would prefer doing things differently. Is it more important that homeowners have one specific option among many different types of benchtops, or that the workers who prepare and install them can go to work with an expectation their lungs won’t turn to stone?
I don’t believe the choice is death of workers or engineered stone. You can have stone and healthy workers with good safety standards that are adhered too. Great example would be banning in home cutting. If it’s pre-cut in a purpose built facility which has appropriate airflow systems, where’s the risk to the worker? Your asbestos example doesn’t apply because that continues to degrade and can be easily made airborne by homeowners. The risk with engineered stone is only when being cut.
>The risk with engineered stone is only when being cut. How to control the use of the product once it's outside the factory? There is always going to be operators who receive the product and find that it needs to be modified on-site to fit. How is that controlled? How is the product treated at end of life? How do future home-owners or workers identify a product that could be dangerous of cut?
And anyone that's worked in a trade or with trades knows they are going to spend 5 minutes on site making it fit rather than send it back and wait weeks to months for another bench top. And the same people in here that are saying you can do this or that and don't have to ban it outright will be the first to throw a hissy fit when a trade refuses to make a "quick adjustment" and wants to send the bench top back to the factory. Half these people in here have never worked in a trade/factory environment and know the social/managerial/customer/time pressures that negatively affect worker safety.
i was against this ban at first but this point makes me get it
I don't think you understand the risks of silica... at all
So when the homeowner decides to DIY install a bigger sink and cooktop in their kitchen?
Because ppe is a last resort not a primary control. Don’t worry the people being forced to work with these benches aren’t shedding tears they are about to get paid as much or more to work on safer products.
So when a family member decides to demolish the top and get a new one not knowing the minimum ppe requirements and gets silicosis, you are happy with that?
I guess they see the industry as benchtops and there's plenty of other benchtops out there.
I guess the problem also comes down to the diyer or dodgy plumber who is installing a new filter tap that just drills through it years after install. Or the renovation 20 years later where they just cut through it to make demolition easier. Could easily see safety precautions not being followed for after market services like sink and cooktop installs.
Don't quote me on this but I read that 1 in 4 people who worked with this stuff ended up with health complications from it. If that's true that's absolutely fucked and the time to act is now. Banning it is the right call. It's like asbestos. If you cut it on a controlled environment, wear respiratory protection and dispose of it properly it can be perfectly safe. Unfortunately manu people won't do this. In the end these products are really harmful and we don't need to be using them. That's a good enough reason for me.
Yep. Let's be serious - asbestos had more of a practical reason to be used than this stuff. Except for the danger it was quite frankly a brilliant product. There are many different things we can use to build a frigging kitchen bench though that don't pose this danger.
Are uses joking. F/me, do you work in construction? Do do the job properly and safely it cost so much. But then Muhammad Abdul haroof Ahmed Akbar my friend quotes half that price and has no safely in place and does dry cutting to save money and has that young kid on the study visa cutting it and everyone in the work area is effected. And a different story is the dust just gets tripped in the bin, and then forklift drive gets it empty it. Then the trip people get it. Then blow around for everyone else. I like it when then swap it off the edge over the office workers. Wh3n was the last time you saw it double bag and put in the right bin. 10 years plus construction and sad to say ever.
Because of company greed and in general employers not giving a FK about their workers...
Because the dust is still there, it still sprays everywhere. It still eventually dries out and poses a risk, whether it's kicked up off the floor or scraped up from a machine catch or just left to go wherever it goes.
A friends son worked with this product. All the safety procedures and PPE was not used because the boss of the company thought it was stupid and told people not to follow any of the rules or wear the PpE. My friends son has silicosis because of the culture of the workplace, not the material.
I'm pretty sure if he wasn't working with engineered stone, he would not have silicosis.
Asbestos is safe too if handled correctly. Would you want your kids to work with it as apprentices?
aromatic placid repeat screw rainstorm disgusting marble handle quickest desert *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Nah, asbestos is different. It's easily disturbed by homeowners and made hazardous. Can't say the same about stone. Silly comparison.
This is an incredibly dumb take, unlike asbestos, engineered stone at its finished state is not a health hazard. Edit: did… did above just edited his words to make them less dumb? Lol
Asbestos in it’s finished state is not a health hazard
Asbestos in it's finished state is safe too. That's why we leave it in place and marked to not be disturbed. Because that's when you get the deaths. And as with asbestos, the benches will eventually be moved, potentially recut by people such as yourself, with limited understanding and unlimited overestimation of knowledge. That's why we don't put it back in.
I understand asbestos are banned because inadvertent exposure alone is dangerous. But according to your earlier comment, we or our kids will attempt to cut our own engineered stone bench tops? REALLY? Now this is just a bad faith argument trying to muddy up the issue.
Most DIY people won't touch it unlike asbestos products. The equipment to cut stone and polish it isn't cheap or easy. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be banned, but we have the WHS Act that is meant to handle safety. Why hasn't anyone gone after the companies that aren't managing the risks.
Absetos is easily disturbed Stone isn't easily disturbed. can't compare the two
The problem is in many of the factories. Plenty of the shops that cut engineered stone flaunt saftey rules and endanger workers. Rarley is the stone actually cut on building sites.
Have seen MDF doors cut all day long with no masks or goggles. The workers looked really unhealthy too
It's against the law to cut on site.
We do , people are just lazy and don’t follow the correct protocols
Yeah they’re made in a factory, by workers with shit or negligible PPE. From the article it appears like they don’t think there are any processes which are safe.
Maybe there’s not? Isn’t asbestos dangerous no matter how little you breathe in? Even if you wore a mask, it’s still on your clothes after you leave work
I was talking to a medical researcher about it a few years back and she said the silicosis mortality timeline was up to twenty times faster than asbestosis. Turns out breathing rock is bad for your lungs.
That’s my assumption as well. Even if you have robot factories, people could still come in contact with the particles.
A receptionist in the office of a factory was diagnosed with silicosis at about 23 yo after working there for about 3 years. Never set foot on the factory floor
It can be perfectly safe to use, cut and work with these products. Automation, wet/water cutting, dust masks etc. There are also workplace exposure limits that are appropriate (measured amount of dust in air that means you don't need ppe). The issue is with following and enforcing the rules. Sad but true. Lots of small, medium business that just don't have good health and safety programs. While I'm on the soapbox this is the same issue with house building in Australia, we have good codes and regulations, just no one enforces or follows the rules.
Of course there is, and there has been since the late 90's. non compliance is the problem. " However, it is tolerably clear that historically there has been insufficient compliance activities in respect of the engineered stone industry for the level of risk. Further, there has been, and continues to be, non-compliance with the obligations imposed by the model WHS laws, by both PCBUs and workers. "
Here is a quote from a [news.com](https://news.com).au [https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/engineered-stone-the-new-asbestos-killing-aussie-tradies/news-story/7c75c18771ed2c5cc5e3a164640107ff](https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/engineered-stone-the-new-asbestos-killing-aussie-tradies/news-story/7c75c18771ed2c5cc5e3a164640107ff) "More than 70 cases are before Australian courts. Workers, many on oxygen tanks or needing lung transplants, insist they were never warned about how dangerous the material they worked with could be." With so much such an extreme out come from working with it, it absolutely should be banned.
What about actual stone? All the people working in quarries today, or cutting concrete.. They'll all be similarly affected, but there will never be a ban on them. There are plenty of dangerous products that need to be handled correctly. Engineered stone is no exception.
[удалено]
Levels of silica vary wildly. Engineered stone is usually around 95% silica, marble is like 1% sandstone around 25%. Concrete is usually around 30%. There is still a lot les silica going into lungs. If you look at the a.c.t they have mandatory silica training to try and improve compliance with all stone products. I suspect other states will follow at some point
It’s not even as simple as the percent silica, it’s also the type of silica. Engineered stone is comprised of mostly crushed quartz, which is pure crystalline silica. When cut it produces a much finer respirable dust than say granite would when cut.
It's not so much the banning of this or any other product I'm in support of, it's the fact businesses use products or have practices that injure and kill workers. I can't imagine the heartache that these families are going through, if banning this spares others from this fate than that is a good thing.
We do. Just some places dont. Its harsh on the placers that have invested in a safe way to cut it to now just be banned from using it.
Like, people get cancer. If the cost triples because it needs that much money to be safe, would you, like, pay it? I cant believe that in 2023 people, like, think they know everything
I’m guessing because people suck. Was talking to a bench top guy and people just cut on site and hope not o get caught.
Greed.
Its harsh on the placers that have invested in a safe way to cut it to now just be banned from using it. tens of thousands of dollars invested for nothing.
Those places that have invested I promise you at some point had unsafe practices. Having been a shareholder in one company I wad disgusted at the 'investment' for safer practices was actually linked to faster production lines being the main drivers. I have been told there is now currently 4 previosus workers with Silcosis from the earlier years.
The writing was on the wall, if they spent that money recently then it's poor business
I think the industry was expecting proper laws around cutting stone. Was even a shop on one of the TV programmes in the last few weeks showing off their new safe stone cutter. Banning engineered stone when the same problem exists with real stone is kinda strange.
It doesnt though. The report clearly outlines the increased risk of engineered stone due to the rapid onset silicosis.
Engineered stone is higher risk than natural stone when cutting and grinding.
I've seen guys grinding this shit on site just to get things to fit. It's.just too high of a risk.
They are doing the wrong thing. Shouldn’t punish the whole industry.
Hint anyone who cares about safety gets fired. Builders got targets to hit.
Unfortunately you’re right. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Welcome to society, where we legislate to protect the stupid
I’m a WHSO and I’m so stealing this
Not true. There were always proper laws in place. Workplaces MUST provide a safe place to work. It's more dangerous than regular stone because of the much smaller crystal/particle size.
It’s more risky because of the higher silica %. But any respirable foreign bodies are bad for health.
That is 100%, breathing in a lot of dust is bad. Lung related disease from dust in bakers, sawmillers, people working outside with traffic and stuff
I used to work with it. Cutting it dry on a regular table saw. Trimming it with a router. Dust everywhere. I wore a respirator because I could see it wouldn't be good. I'm glad I did after all this came out. None too many other people did..
If you work around any sort of dust or fumes daily and don’t wear as respirator you are brain dead , anyone would know it’s bad for you
You say that and it's probbaly true but you try to convince a old tradie who smokes like a chimney to take better care of his lungs. That's the people I was dealing with.
Try working in any outback scenario knowing that you are now potentially exposed to silicosis due to the natural dust in the environment and calling them brain dead… There is a time and place but now is the time for expanding knowledge and awareness not sledging of people that have suffered
And where did all the dust go? Do you have vacuums that collect it so it can be disposed of (I assume the only safe way would be to wet the dust and then glue it all together?), or does it just blow away to be someone else's problem? Were others in the vicinity, not wearing respirators, at risk?
The table saw had a vacume for collecting sawdust, it was disposed of with the rest of the sawdust in the same bag. That collected some. Potentially yes they were, weather they realise it or not I couldn't say. They weren't the type to take personal safety too seriously.
Cuz a bunch of fuck wit “PPE is for pussies” stone cutters there is now no affordable option for this style, unless the market comes up with something new.
That’s so bourgeois and out of touch. The cheap customers and builders force them to not have extractor fans, sealed rooms and empty construction sites.
Polished concrete countertops will end up being the next big thing.
May as well be polished turds
So what’s the alternative for kitchen Renos? Natural stone is too expensive and laminate is cheap garbage. I see some suggesting to treat it with more caution but I’m guessing that’ll just cause the price to go up defeating the purpose of using it begin with.
Nothing. People are saying polished concrete - but WTF difference is that to engineered stone at the end of the day? Honestly if you want it to be good you're probably going to have to go for natural stone - then you'll get super pissed when it stains and absorbs anything wet you leave on it
What’s the alternative now?
Curious about this too - is it basically going back to laminate or paying out the ass for marble?
Being able to put your pots straight off the stove is almost worth it! Oh you said Marble.. You cant even sneeze on that without it discolouring.
Natural stone with higher silica content of course
Corian, dekton, laminate, wood, stainless steel, natural stone, porcelain. There are lots of different options. I’m a fan of Corian myself. Look up CASF and have a read about it.
How do these option compare price wise?
> Corian gotta be honest i don't like the idea of a dupont plastic being near my food and really high temperature
Natural stone, porcelain and sintered stone are already on the market. I don't care what people are saying, natural stone does not have to be more expensive. Can it be? Certainly. In 2024, depending on the definition of "engineered stone", there's a zero silica alternative ready to go.
But you can still buy a pack of darts.
They’re prob more expensive than engineered stone tho
Wow - the number of people that seem happy for ‘someone else’ to take on the risk of a slow painful death for a benchtop… The first step in the hierarchy of controls is ‘eliminate the hazard’, the last being ‘wear PPE’. I don’t see ‘maximise profit for shareholders’ which is where we went with asbestos. Seems a pretty obvious choice for a product that isn’t essential.
It’s because 99% of the people on Reddit haven’t ever worked blue collar. Look at all the dumb shit you see in this sub alone. Everyone knows that if your sole control between death or not is PPE, you’ve fucked up and reached the bottom of the hierarchy.
Yes, I find it very strange that a lot of people go straight to "wearing ppe" as if this is the benchmark for risk control.
But PPE is the benchmark to prevent virtually every work-related medical illness when the causative agent is identified. Sawdust in the lungs isn't good either. Has anyone heard of that being banned?
PPE in trades is supposed to be a last resort to save your life, unlike say medicine, where PPE is necessary to prevent the spread of disease between patients, clinicians, nurses etc. Step one is always remove the problem, in this case engineered stone is a dangerous product and needs to be banned, the requirements to work with it safely are impractical and you can’t rely on either employers or employees to safely handle it. if a client has a benchtop delivered to site that is 20mm out, you’re going to dry cut on site to make it fit so you don’t lose your next job which could be $20k+ down the drain. Engineered stone is worse than asbestos for the people working on it, you can’t reverse silicosis and way too many young people are affected
> PPE in trades is supposed to be a last resort to save your life, unlike say medicine, where PPE is necessary to prevent the spread of disease between patients, clinicians, nurses etc. Sorry this comparison seems to suggest that the spread of disease does not involve getting negative effects of the disease, which include death. > Step one is always remove the problem, in this case engineered stone is a dangerous product and needs to be banned, the requirements to work with it safely are impractical and you can’t rely on either employers or employees to safely handle it. Silicosis is the [most common](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis#Epidemiology) occupational lung disease worldwide. Beside engineered stone, other environments where silicosis can occur [include](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis#Occupational_silicosis) > construction, railroad, demolition, mining, sandblasting, quarry, tunnelling, ceramics and foundry workers, as well as grinders, stone cutters, stone countertops, refractory brick workers, tombstone workers, workers in the oil and gas industry, pottery workers, fiberglass manufacturing, glass manufacturing, flint knappers and others. so why home in on one industry? What about the mines? > if a client has a benchtop delivered to site that is 20mm out, you’re going to dry cut on site to make it fit so you don’t lose your next job which could be $20k+ down the drain. This is not solved by banning things. This is solved by having strong worker's rights. > Engineered stone is worse than asbestos for the people working on it, you can’t reverse silicosis and way too many young people are affected Asbestosis cannot be reversed, yet people still work with them with respect to removal and demolitions. Are these individuals part of an epidemic of asbestosis and mesothelioma? I don't know how you can say silicosis is worse than asbestosis, they are both bad conditions in their own way.
Is English your second language, because you’re a fucking moron if it isn’t. They didn’t hone in on one industry, sandblasting has been banned for years, and we can’t eliminate mining from our economy, so in that case the last resort is necessary. This has been a long ongoing process, and the only reason you’ve heard about it outside the trades is because the cost of saving lives is making your bench more expensive. For your workers rights issue, the government actually did a huge amount of research into this looking for a way to regulate the industry and they essentially found that nobody in the chain could be relied on to enforce proper safety 100% of the time, and because the risks are so high with this stuff the decision was made to ban rather than wasting resources enforcing compliance measures. And the reason we still work with asbestos is because we can’t stop, there are hundreds of thousands of houses made of the stuff in this country and we can’t just let them rot or the problems get worse. And there are a few minor Uses of the stuff that it is necessary for, but the industry that uses it is so small it’s enforceable. Overall though, based on my personal experience being in construction, 60% plus of all tradies are fucking dumb, like actual mouth breathing monkeys, they think PPE is for pussies and bully smart, safe co workers into not using it, in that environment it just isn’t practical to enforce safety measures. Another big issue is south East Asian workers coming in for below minimum wage, and not understanding their rights and destroying their lungs to send money home to their families, every time I see them I get a bit sad thinking that their boss is taking advantage of them.
>Is English your second language, because you’re a fucking moron if it isn’t. This is amazing, and exactly sums up my thoughts on this posters comments.
LOL starting with personal insults. What a man-child. > we can’t eliminate mining from our economy, so in that case the last resort is necessary. So basically because engineered stone isn't a big money maker, and mining is, the lives of miners are expendable. I hear you loud and clear. And then you say that no one can be trusted to enforce PPE. Which means that your comment about the last resort in mining is moot, and that miners are expendable. If tradies are dumb and refuse to follow rules and regulations, then they should wear the consequences of their actions. If they won't use PPE for engineered stone, they won't use PPE for all the other things that cause occupational disease, and there are many. But I guess home building, renovations, and mining are too important for the economy, right?
Brother you’re just arguing for the sake of it. You’re just plain wrong. End of fucking story you fucking monkey
It makes me wild…. Almost as good as putting up a sign ‘Don’t breathe this in because it will kill you a few years down the track’
Yea I don't see why so many people leap to defend engineered stone. It only looks slightly less cheap than laminate. This is like getting annoyed that CFCs got banned from refrigerants or forever chemicals were banned from plastic bottles. I'm sure an alternative material will come into style. I think deep down people don't wanna be told an industry they supported gave 700 workers silicosis. The same way no one likes being confronted with the meat industry or who is making their clothes.
I'm less interested in the looks of engineered stone and more interested in the strength. If you get a chip or crack in an MDF benchtop it's ugly as hell will have a slow death from moisture. No such issues with engineered stone. It is a vastly superior product for bench tops. Time to put my order in before the ban....
I get what you’re saying but should we be banning concrete and mortar too?
Good thing all the proposed alternatives will *checks notes* cause long term health effects if not prepared using appropriate PPE 4 of the 6 suggestions contain silicates and in the case of concrete, tile, and porcelain, these materials are routinely dry cut on site. Natural stone can have excessive amounts of silicates depending in the sand content of the quarry it’s extracted from. I saw one slab of natural Italian marble at CDK stone that had 98% silicate content. 2 of the suggestions will have manufacturing processes that cause health issues Laminates are generally bonded to MDF which needs PPE to cut and requires bonding processes using high VOC glues that also need PPE to apply Hardwoods like Tasmanian blackwood and walnut also have carcinogen risks when cutting and inhaling the find dust from the wood Even if you do stainless steel, it’ll be bonded to MDF or particle board in a similar fashion to laminates so the same risks around cutting and gluing apply. And if you’re using wood products as a raw material such as for splash backs, infills, or cabinet doors, then application of conversion varnishes and two pack paints will have high VOC exposure for the worker doing the finishing, also necessitating PPE and special production facilities.
Silica alone is not the issue. Saying X has Y% silica is not the argument when evidence suggests that cutting engineered stone generates higher concentrations of respirable crystalline silica when compared to cutting natural stone, even when silica content by weight is the same. Here are a couple of studies, but there are many; * [Engineered Stone Fabrication Work Releases Volatile Organic Compounds Classified as Lung Irritants](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9923029/) * [Silicosis in finishing workers in quartz conglomerates processing](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7810008/)
Reading through that first study suggests that the actual silicate content is the least harmful part of exposure, and rather the bonding agents and resins are either toxic in their own right or aid in suspending the silicate content, which leads to a higher chance of ingestion. So really, it’s more about the overall chemical composition of the stone than the silicate content itself.
Holy sheesh, it seems like everything causes or is associated with badness. Kinda makes me think of all the home projects the family — including the old man — have done, how many with masks, how many with effective masks (unsure if oldish/reused masks are effective enough, or how old they can be). 🤔
There’s a lot of comments here from people who do not work in this industry. Even if a factory has wet cutting processes in place and state of the art dust suppression systems- the stuff still has to be trimmed out on site - where there is no such safety processes in place. Then it gets ground and the dust is then airborne. There comments here: “employers should provide safe workplaces” - that’s fantasy land bullshit. The building industry and the bosses don’t give a flying f**k. It’s full of cowboys and largely completely unregulated. Plus it is dominated by small businesses and sole traders anyway. Take asbestos- there are still halfwits who remove it without masks, proper clothing and who grind it. That’s despite all the media publicity. The stone is dangerous, there is no safe level of exposure and idiots and innocent subcontractors, need to be kept safe. The bans have not come soon enough.
Every second comment in this sub about any home alteration is get more quotes and force tradies to cut corners to win jobs but in this post they are all supporting paying more.
People who back getting multiple quotes are generally armchair experts. From a tradesman’s point of view, domestic customers that want small work done and a quote as well are a nuisance, it’s a waste of time. That’s the truth of the matter.
Fair enough, however the tradies themselves have to take some responsibility with safe practices and PPE rather than bosses not giving a fuck. Masks are cheap, wear them.
Anyone with on-site experience knows full well they don’t and won’t wear them, plus the issue of other trades on-site who are in the vicinity. If u are referring to paper masks, they are fundamentally useless.
I'm not referring to paper masks, they are useless. Plenty of well fitting cartridge filter masks, half and full face, available and don't cost much at all. And therein lies the real problem, a culture of refusal to wear proper PPE. The sick tradies can cry all they want, but if they were complicit in their illness when knowing full well there were risks then one could say too bad too sad.
How do you trim a bench top on site safely? Sure wearing a mask will stop you inhaling dust whilst you trim, but what about the other trades that will be exposed? What about when you or your partner washes your clothes?
Surely it can be done by robots and humans just handle the raw and finished pieces.
Lots of placers use computer controlled cutters. That should of been the legislation. Silly work safe have over extended. Natural stone causes the same problems.
You seem to know the business. Terrazzo must surely be caught up in the same net.
The issue is the last minute adjustments on site to get the products to fit. Thus exposing not only the stone worker but anyone else on the site that day
So how many stone companies does this put of business ?
Why arent you asking how many lives does this save?
How many lives does this save ? Look I can ask two questions!
Probably the same amount as when asbestos got banned 20 years ago. Seems the industry had no problem switching to the next lung disease material since, and whatever alternative they come up with next. Not to mention these [manufacturers were lobbying to stop the ban](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-30/silicosis-ban-on-engineered-stone-in-kitchens-bathrooms/103031768), while repeatedly breaching laws and regulations already in place. Companies that were under surveillance in several states continued to breach said laws. They definitely weren't blindsided with this, and there is a transition period with the ban. They aren't solely to blame of course, importers also do not do enough to disclose the health risks of their products, and there is not a lot of awareness/education available for tradies until recently.
Less than the amount of lives lost due to it's use. Would you like us to bring back asbestos?
Do you have any idea how obnoxious you sound ? Could have made a point differently , do better next time.
Pot, kettle? Seriously, if putting the lives of workers over company profits is obnoxious then oh well. In 2019, there were 12,000 silicosis deaths worldwide. Sure, only a few are in Australia, but 230 people a year in Australia are getting lung cancer from silicosis... How many companies make manufactured stone? It's a straight comparison to asbestos, and if you believe it isn't, then let's hope no one you know works in the industry.
Not sure why people are downvoting this. Im a plumber in the industry who spent his apprenticeship cutting out engineered stone holes for sinks and cooktops, god knows what’s in me… safety should always come before profit. Silicosis is multiple 10 fold more dangerous than asbestos, young blokes will continue to be subjected to this shit if there’s no radical change. Sick of the ausfinance nerds that migrated across to here to get tips on painting their light switches, many of you don’t know how it is in the field.
Businesses that ignore safety procedures will continue to exist and will continue to kill. This saves 0 lives.
Bullshit, they said the same thing about asbestos. Look at the twits down voting 😂
You're absolutely correct, it's just that they didn't like your tone of voice.
When I got my forklift license there were 3 stonemasons in the class with me and all three of them had rocklung.
A lot of businesses are about to go under. Good luck people.
Good news, my house will appreciate in value due to the rarity
For all those that are worried, there are alternatives. It's a good ban imo, for thensafety of workers.
Does anyone know what other western countries do ? It seems like an overreaction to me. Seriously if they are worried about people's health (when they should be using PPE) why the fuck don't they ban smoking ...
My guess, and it's just a guess... smoking IS banned in alot of places, depending on which state you're in. It's also an addiction and there is also alot of tax picked up from tobacco (and alcohol which also kills). I don't think anyone is addicted to engineered stone.
PPE doesnt save you actually from super fine dust
I’m a stonemason and the media has absolutely taken this for a ride and putting thousands and thousands of people out of a job. Yes, silicosis is real and dangerous but it’s controlled, here in Victoria you need to be licensed by worksafe to cut, sell, operate with engineered stone. If worksafe catches you making dust on-site or in a factory without the proper equipments and safety in place you would get reamed with a monster fine. Yes, there are cowboys still out there doing the wrong things that would bomb a house full of dust. Shutting down a whole industry shouldn’t be the solution. Before silicosis was being made aware of factories would be covered in dust, you couldn’t see more than 2 meters in front of you. These days you need to cut wet, you need to wear a respirator even with the water. All the major brands, caeserstone, silestone, stoneambassador, smartstone etc. all have low silica products. The media are hanging onto what was happening 15 years ago. Yes it sucks, I feel horrible for the lack of awareness they had back in the day but it’s not how it was. I am extremely lucky that my co-workers, me, 90% of stonemasons in Victoria doing the right thing are being safe and being looked after. What they don’t tell you concrete has 40% silica, ceramic tiles have 40% silica, natural stones- granite, marble, quartzite range between 10-90% silica. The porcelain alternative has 20% silica. Surely concrete to be banned next?!
Too many people (and companies) weren't doing the right thing. Call it 15% of the industry, but it's led to too many deaths and the ship has sailed, there's no putting it back together. Regarding natural stone; Scientific evidence suggests that cutting engineered stone generates higher concentrations of respirable crystalline silica when compared to cutting natural stone, even when silica content by weight is the same. Here are a couple of studies, but there are many; * [Engineered Stone Fabrication Work Releases Volatile Organic Compounds Classified as Lung Irritants](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9923029/) * [Silicosis in finishing workers in quartz conglomerates processing](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7810008/)
I'm curious about what happens on site - to folks still grind pieces to get to a fit where needed, and if so how can this be handled safely?
Wa this year (2023): Friend did renos, stipulated in contract, no stone cutting on site, and absolutely not in the house. Kitchen measured up to the mm. And checked. They came home early, and there was the installer, with an angle grider covering the whole house in dust. Mate was pissed their 6mo's nursery was covered in it. They booted the guy out, and are now being sued as "that practice is standard," never mind the contract and going over the installation stipulations.
Its ridiculous that they ban this. But you can still use and cut hebel, mdf, natural stone and so many more. Just regulate it better? Bigger fines and more information
I laugh at their list of alternative materials. Stone already exists and is expensive. Higher demand will make it more expensive. Porcelain? For a bathroom vanity but not a kitchen bench. Tiles? That's funny. There's a reason why they faded into obscurity during the 80s. Laminate already makes up a great deal of the bench tops used. Timber? Well, with the impending ban on native hardwood logging in Victoria, that's going to make that more challenging, let alone the extra work required to prepare and maintain its going to make that unpalatable, let alone the aesthetic trends being against it. People fail to wear PPE all the time; dust masks/respirators, eye protection, hearing protection, gloves etc. This is another case of people meeting the outcomes of their choices.
More people die falling off ladders every year so why not ban all ladders too.
Don’t worry, tier 1 construction companies are trying to
They're trying to!
Actually on big union sites, regular ladders are banned. Platform ladders or scissors lifts only!
Because falling off a ladder a couple of times isn’t a death sentence? Almost like there are different levels of risk
Can you read?
This is to distract from the negligence lawsuits. It would collapse the building industry.
Back to blue and yellow veneer tops we go
Stupid but inevitable outcome. I’d like to see the breakdown of silicosis cases by employer. I’d wager that cases are concentrated to irresponsible operators who did not follow proper handling and safety guidelines. I feel sympathy for those who were exploited by irresponsible employers, and the responsible employers who made significant investments into safe fabrication practices that will now become redundant.
Lazy / under-resourced inspectorate. Same with the legislators. Dodgy small businesses & vulnerable or wilfully slack tradies. It’s not really like the old JHI asbestos products issue .. we don’t really hear much about the manufacturers’ staff getting dusted. Cynical approach to preventing dust inspiration. And natural stone is most popularly “granite” with a xstalline silica content >60%. Can’t see much difference in the risk from dry cutting for that to a manufactured silica slab with say 90% silica.
The issue isn’t so much the manufacturing, it’s the dry cutting in homes that is the really hard to control bit. Ultimately this is all of us paying the price for idiots who don’t use PPE. It’s like banning cars because some people don’t wear seat belts. And the real outcome will be a bunch of DIYers trying to cut stuff at home themselves I reckon. Even worse.
https://preview.redd.it/3mr5muctr66c1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd88b43f4dc9ef763b0bc70cbe1b3638f9474579 Here is our engineered stone getting cut to size out back, with another guy with a blower vac just blowing particles far and wide. This was several years ago but I don’t think much has changed.
Nothing has changed
Cars are dangerous , do we ban those too?
The tradies choose not to wear any PPE. Tile cutting is similar I would imagine. We had a tiler at our place recently cutting porcelain tiles without any mask on at all.
Lazy fix
[удалено]
Stupid ban. The issue is f.uckwits that don’t take precautions cutting it. Once installed there’s ZERO risk
It’s a bit like banning electricity because you could get electrocuted if installing it incorrect. We had kitchen installed a couple of years back. Slabs came in pre cut from factory, where all safety precautions are in place. Any cuts on site were done with wet saws/grinders/drills, no dust. Honestly it seems ludicrous and it seems like a reasonably sustainable product.
What happened when the dust dried?
FFS, It's absolutely not like having electricity,
Engineered stone alternatives are not safe too. They produce small particles…. So what are you gonna do? Ban those too?
Fuck Australia is embarrassing. We literally ban things because our population is too stupid to do it safely. We can't regulate sensibly and say "cut it via robots in controlled factories" - oh no, because some fuckwit is going to cut it themselves so we ban it nationwide. We do these bans all the time in this country and it's utterly embarrassing and so fucking frustrating.
If we can do it safely, lets bring back asbestos the problem is their will be people that will cut it the wrong way
Asbestos is very different. For the simple reason that homeowners can easily disturb asbestos and make it hazardous. It is much harder to disturb stone.
So what happens to essastone and all these companies that make stone benchtops for the thousands of builds? Does everyone start hsing wood or marble?
It’s weird because smoking is also dangerous but it is also still legal to sell them. Engineered stones are not the only one that contains silica which causes silicosis and there are so many other products other there but they specifically targeted engineered stone
Good
Considering that I just had a roofer do work on my roof without PPE that the law stipulates, I would hazard a guess that a lot of the silicosis was caused by a lack of PPE. There are so many industries that require PPE (in one form or another) and we don't hear about them being banned. A bit of a heavy handed way to address something that PPE and good ventilation would prevent.
Health-wise, how is it different to cutting granite, marble etc?
Silica content in engineered stone is much much higher
This wreaks of incompetence or corruption.
Let's ban cars because of dangerous drivers too. They kill innocent victims when irresponsible people operate them in appropriately. So yeah, let's ban them. Hell forbids we have H&S requirements that are actually enforced with business owners accountable for it. FFS Australia, i love you, but sometimes you really are dumb.
Section 19 work place safety act 2020 A person conducting a business or undertaking must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the health and safety of other persons is not put at risk from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking. This is law, the stats show that current controls are not practicable and are killing workers. So this ban IS enforcing the act.
Correction : the current controls are suitable, but they are not implemented and not enforced by the regulator.
Please define “reasonably practicable”?
I bet you'd like asbestos to still be in use.
I miss the days of lead paint and asbestos