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Australia to ban engineered stone

abc.net.au

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Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#131

Post by Nursie »

legitster wrote: post #18

> 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…

> I don't get why the industry was not allowed to pursue low-silica engineered stone

From what I can tell, the law itself allows for products under 1% silica. Now where did I read that ...

"According to the ministers’ communique, exceptions will be introduced for the removal, repair, minor modification or disposal of engineered stone installed before 1 July 2024, as well as for products with trace levels of silica under 1%."

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/13/engin...

Yes, that is a massively higher hurdle than natural stone has to meet.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#132

Post by oooyay »

unclekev wrote: post #102

I don't understand how banning it does anything to address the underlying problem of people wilfully ignoring PPE/safe working practices. One of the "Suggested safer alternatives" is Granite which can have silica content up to 45% (Engineered stone being 95%+) So instead of 2 years to develop silicosis it will instead take 4 years of working with the "safe alternatives"? All the people who were cutting engineered sto…

Tooling and PPE are part of the problem but not all of it. People who clean up job sites are also getting sick:

> "We actually not only saw people who were directly cutting and grinding the stone, but we saw people who were just sweeping up the work site after the stone had been cut," says Rose. "They were exposed to the silica particles that were suspended in the air just with housekeeping duties."

So, basically everyone needs to wear a P100 all the time when on site until the site has totally been cleaned up. In a manufacturing environment, if you're on the floor you wear a mask and there must be a dust collection system and tools that perform dust collection or mitigation. In this case that'd be water saws.

Read the threads here, a lot people don't like wearing respirators. The outcome isn't surprising.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/02/7660282...

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#133

Post by defrost »

unclekev wrote: post #102

I don't understand how banning it does anything to address the underlying problem of people wilfully ignoring PPE/safe working practices. One of the "Suggested safer alternatives" is Granite which can have silica content up to 45% (Engineered stone being 95%+) So instead of 2 years to develop silicosis it will instead take 4 years of working with the "safe alternatives"? All the people who were cutting engineered sto…

> All the people who were cutting engineered stone with unsafe methods, are now just going to be cutting granite and other natural stone with the same safety practices that led to this being banned.

> I really don't get it.

Before engineered stone took off like crazy people were already cutting natural stone, working as stone masons, working at BGC quarries (stone mining, crushing, grading, delivery).

After engineered stone became fashionable the rates of silicosis in under 35 year old tradespeople spiked in a sharply noticable way.

After the engineered stone ban things will likely return to previous levels of "it happens but it's acceptably rare".

For whatever reason ( . . . insert theory . . . ) engineered stone manufacture and cutting is much much much worse wrt health issues.

For whatever reason your desk bound rational rule of thumb doesn't track against the data.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#134

Post by freefruit »

dylan604 wrote: post #71
legitster wrote: post #18

> 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…

if this was an american decision, i'd suggest the natural stone lobby was better than the engineered stone lobby.

Bunnings & Ikea recently stopped selling this product. My guess is Bunnings probably wanted to stop competition. So they probably lobbied the government for the full ban. After all, you can't have the competition selling a popular product that they don't. (Bunnings is like Australia's Home Depot or Lowe's)

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#135

Post by shiroiuma »

Gigachad wrote: post #74
timeon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this satire?

It’s your brain after too much HN

Exactly. The poster himself points out that he got these views after reading so many highly-voted comments here on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38634213#38635045

Let's face it: HN is a hotbed of libertarian dogma such as this, so while the OP may or may not be trolling, the people on this site need to own this. Heck, one of the very founders of this site was a staunch libertarian, so the OP's post really isn't abnormal here at all.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#136

Post by Yodel0914 »

Gigachad wrote: post #68
zaphirplane wrote: post #31

No arguing against the ban 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

Porcelain seems like the best option here.

For a benchtop? Sounds like one dropped pan away from disaster

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#137

Post by Yodel0914 »

bitbang wrote: post #56
zaphirplane wrote: post #31

No arguing against the ban 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

Concrete isn't silly at all. (Google it) I actually prefer it to most of the other options.

Isn't the problem with concrete that it's porous?

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#138

Post by abracadaniel »

oooyay wrote: post #132
unclekev wrote: post #102

I don't understand how banning it does anything to address the underlying problem of people wilfully ignoring PPE/safe working practices. One of the "Suggested safer alternatives" is Granite which can have silica content up to 45% (Engineered stone being 95%+) So instead of 2 years to develop silicosis it will instead take 4 years of working with the "safe alternatives"? All the people who were cutting engineered sto…

Tooling and PPE are part of the problem but not all of it. People who clean up job sites are also getting sick: > "We actually not only saw people who were directly cutting and grinding the stone, but we saw people who were just sweeping up the work site after the stone had been cut," says Rose. "They were exposed to the silica particles that were suspended in the air just with housekeeping duties." So, basically eve…

There’s got to be ways to cut stone that don’t involve people sweeping up the dust with a broom. Water jets, wet saws, or even just a water mister and a wet/dry vac with a filter is going to be much better than just going about the same process with a different stone that they hope won’t be as bad on their lungs.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#140

Post by stubish »

dylan604 wrote: post #71
legitster wrote: post #18

> 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…

if this was an american decision, i'd suggest the natural stone lobby was better than the engineered stone lobby.

It was pushed by the trade unions, who currently install and work with both products.
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