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Australia to ban engineered stone

abc.net.au

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Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#191

Post by kelnos »

TylerE wrote: post #103
umvi wrote: post #17

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.

Asbestos and lead are also minimal risk undamaged in-situ. Both are now banned, and for good reason.

"Undamaged" is the key word there; asbestos at least seems very easy to damage. Is the same true for engineered stone? And even if you do damage it, I would expect it would not kick up enough dust to be a problem.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#192

Post by Qwertious »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #168
zdragnar wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So hold the people intentionally violating safety practices accountable. This reeks of unnecessary heavy-handedness that hurts everyone. The specified natural alternative (granite) is nearly half silica and is a known health hazard. All this regulation does is allow sloppy work that'll kill people a little more slowly.

> So hold the people intentionally violating safety practices accountable. There's already an automatic process for this. They get silicosis.

Anyone else onsite also gets silicosis, too!

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#193

Post by alvah »

linsomniac wrote: post #53
insaneirish wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as countertops go, field cuts are rather uncommon. Laser templating works well. Holes on the other hand tend to be done in the field. But, people don't wear PPE even though it's simple and easy to do.

~6 years ago I got new countertops, and while they did the bulk of the cutting in their facility, they did do a few cuts in my front yard, creating a huge cloud of dust. The main parts of the counter arrived ready to assemble, but I think they cut a spanning piece for behind the stove, spanning the counters on either side. My 8yo son came out to see what was going on, looked at the workers doing the cut without masks…

I'll take things that never happened for $500, linsomniac

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#194

Post by kelnos »

TylerE wrote: post #127
jacobolus wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One difference is that stone countertops are not a danger to homeowners or people doing future basic renovation.

But they are - and the article mentions it. Alterations years later will still Produce dust.

Altering the manufactured stone is a deliberate act, and appropriate safety precautions can be mandated. (If people choose not to take those safety precautions, that's on them.)

Asbestos can get into your air through accidental damage to insulation, or in the case of lead, paint chipping or pipes aging can do the trick. This is just something that happens incidentally through the regular lifetime of the material, not because someone decided to do something to it.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#195

Post by defrost »

insaneirish wrote: post #167
defrost wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is solid evidence in Australia associating a sharp rise in silicosis in tradesmen with the use of engineered stone. Is there any such evidence in Australia associating such a thing with concrete at the same high risk levels? This is a data driven decision. You appear to have made a quip unsupported by medical data.

I was gonna go with "Australia is not an island" but, well, I think we can see the problem in that statement. :-) In the United States, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has implemented strict guidelines regarding silica ( https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/2018-12/fy16_sh-296... ). Silica is highly present in things like concrete, so it is weird to me that something other than concrete would…

We (Australians) might have corks on our hats (we don't) but we do understand ANOVA and have several world acclaimed epidemiologists working with long standing well recorded data going back many decades.

Engineered silicia is being "singled out" for the crime of being significantly more responsible for actual silicosis cases than concrete is.

Unless you have any evidence to the contrary?

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#196

Post by Qwertious »

pjscott wrote: post #118
jiggawatts wrote: post #2

This was caused by an alarming rise of silicosis cases in young “tradies” (Aussie slang for trade workers). The government and various professional bodies tried to enforce the use of PPE when working with this material, but there has been a housing construction boom going on and a lot of corners were cut (hah!), resulting in young immigrant workers especially turning up in hospitals with lung cancer. No matter how ca…

One standard remedy for situations like this is to mandate that, if an employee gets silicosis for any reason , their employer must pay them some large sum of money. Regardless of whose fault it was. If cutting corners saves money, then corners will inevitably be cut - but if it’s made to be more expensive than being careful, suddenly it makes good business sense to get serious about workplace safety.

Construction companies pay out dividends, go bankrupt, and get re-founded by the owner's wife/cousin/son/etc every year or two here. Also they're more likely to be subcontractors than employees.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#197

Post by zztop44 »

kelnos wrote: post #173
oooyay wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> a lot people don't like wearing respirators. Uh... tough shit? If you'll most likely get an often-fatal respiratory disease from not wearing your respirator, and you still don't wear your respirator, maybe that's just Darwin in action there. Banning the entire thing is just dumb, assuming there are actually PPE and mitigations that will keep people healthy. If people don't follow the safety rules, they should be fi…

The trade off in this regulation is young people dying vs middle class people being able to afford a countertop that looks a bit more expensive than it actually is.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#198

Post by jackvalentine »

irjustin wrote: post #128
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…

Agreed - I'm surprised the Aussie version of OSHA isn't the one taking care of this problem. I feel really bad for the early workers who didn't know getting affected. That's downright terrible. But I imagine there's a method of safely working with this material. And, there's ALWAYS going to be hazardous materials - you can't ban them all. You raise the standard of the people working with materials. This feels like -…

> But I imagine there's a method of safely working with this material.

You can read the report if you'd like, basically they weighed up a bunch of options. https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/202...

> NOW, if it's like asbestos and the end consumer can get affected then I 100% agree with this ruling.

It is - the final fitment is usually on site with dry cuts made contaminating the area it's installed in.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#199

Post by quickthrower2 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #160
schneems wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with “always wear a p100” is that they’re not comfortable in an unventilated uncooled house which is where a lot of construction happens. If everyone is wearing one you also need to take more breaks which eats into time to do the job. The industry is set up so you only get paid for doing the job. If doing it unsafely means doing it faster or being more comfortable then a lot of small time contractors will…

> The problem with “always wear a p100” is that they’re not comfortable in an unventilated uncooled house which is where a lot of construction happens. If everyone is wearing one you also need to take more breaks which eats into time to do the job. Also, solutions that require people to consistently do uncomfortable things are not realistic; we know they will fail to comply - just like we would - and they will get si…

The same people probably work out at the gym ironically! But covid showed that people can wear masks alot.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#200

Post by FpUser »

chii wrote: post #185
abracadaniel wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The sad state of australian industry is that there's very little investment in tooling, plant and equipment. Businesses don't want to invest, and even if they do, they find it hard to find any financing as banks don't want to lend. It makes such tooling expensive, and thus a lot of small businesses don't (or can't) upgrade their tooling.

Same in the US. People die cutting stone countertops. Nobody gives a shit
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