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I have to say the alternatives from the article are significantly more expensive, not durable or silly (concrete) Anyone had luck with one of the alternatives
* Natural stone * Porcelain * Laminate * Tiles * Concrete * Wood/Timber
I don't think I've ever seen a tradesperson wearing PPE. Recent example: our neighbor had some stonework done, and these guys were just casually hanging out in clouds of cement and stone dust.
Wet tile saws and waterjets can cut stone (and engineered stone) with essentially no dust. An angle grinder with a dust shroud and HEPA filtered extractor (total cost starts around $400) can do the same thing a regular angle grinder does but with a lot less dust.
And one really can work all day in a pouch-style N95 mask. They don’t collect much more than 95% of fine dust, but they do work, they’re easy to fit, and they’re easy to breathe through. I would wear one for added protection if I were using an angle grinder with a dust extractor. (Although I might use a full mask respirator instead for eye protection. And PAPRs are pretty great if rather expensive.)
I'm not a huge fan of government overreach like this. Workers should have refused to work with the material if it were truly dangerous, and the free market would have eventually pushed engineered stone out, giving way to innovation for a better, safer material.
> Earlier this year workplace ministers tasked Safe Work Australia, a government WHS agency, with investigating how a ban could work and whether low-silica engineered stone could remain on the market safely. > The report found there was no safe level of silica, concluding: "The use of all engineered stone should be prohibited." I don't understand this logic. Silica is also present in natural stone too! If they are no…
Studies looking into the issue have found non silica compounds cause issues too, and its the engineering process rather than the silica that causes the problem. This is why they haven't created an exemption for low-silica products. > "It's not just about the silica, it's something specific about the engineered stone products that's causing such a significant issue in workers fabricating these products." https://www.a…
> "What we found ... was that the natural products we had in the panel of products that we assessed actually caused the biggest inflammatory response," Professor Zosky said.
I'm not sure why they are saying it's the engineering. Their own study says that natural stone products are worse than the engineered products!
It's probably there's a larger number of cases of silicosis from engineered products despite it being safer. And that's probably because it's easier to cut in the field so people do it more often.
I'm not a huge fan of government overreach like this. Workers should have refused to work with the material if it were truly dangerous, and the free market would have eventually pushed engineered stone out, giving way to innovation for a better, safer material.
Did you get raised reading only economic and game theory texts? Real people in the real world don't have as much agency as you'd like to think. Sometimes you take the job that you can get. See Amazon warehouse workers.
Seems like you should ban the manufacturing methods, not the end product. Like, if I invent a way to safely manufacture and do on-site adjustments of engineered stone, shouldn't I be rewarded by the market for it? The material itself is not harmful, just breathing the dust of it is, which can be said of a lot of things in a common household.
Do you think that folks will install it on site without cutting it?
I don't think I've ever seen a tradesperson wearing PPE. Recent example: our neighbor had some stonework done, and these guys were just casually hanging out in clouds of cement and stone dust.
Wearing PPE is miserable. The respiratory masks that reliably keep silica out of your lungs are painful. My job involves working with silica powders and I can really only handle about 20-30 minutes decked out in my bunny suit, respirator, over eye goggles, gloves and disposable sleeves before I need to take a break for air. This is in a climate controlled environment with a minimally physical set of tasks. Having wor…
Or a PAPR if your job is willing to pay for one.
But really terrible stuff, I know that's who the article focuses on, but it's just intrinsically, like mostly guys in their late 20s and 30s. If they have families, the kids are gonna be young, and then their lungs are just shot.
I don't remember if there was a water conservation angle to it, but there was discussion of using water for some measure of dust suppression, and they just didn't have it.
So is this basically what we would call quartz countertops in the states? I can't say that I've heard the term engineered stone. Preaching to the choir but feels like this stuff should be phased out yesterday. The PPE is almost beside the point, though it feels lower h hyprocrite to me maybe because its closer to home. There's so many resources that inflict a toll e.g. metals coffee palm oil, but you don't think about them since the people are halfway around the world.
I don't think I've ever seen a tradesperson wearing PPE. Recent example: our neighbor had some stonework done, and these guys were just casually hanging out in clouds of cement and stone dust.
If we can make earbuds comfortable enough so that people can wear them 8 hours a day, there's got to be something to do for breathing.