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Australia to ban engineered stone

abc.net.au

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Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#231

Post by _3u10 »

piperswe wrote: post #228
paxys wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly that's just the culture. I've seen apprentices laughed at by old timers and called pussies because they were taking basic precautions and wearing PPE. And then to fit in they themselves took on that same attitude.

It hurts me when I see my tradie trainee husband (at school to be an auto mechanic) skip PPE in places he really shouldn't (e.g. latex gloves when handling carcinogenic fluids). I don't really know as I can do much other than state my objections to deaf ears though.

Those fluids are carcinogenic to drink, not to get on your skin.

Don’t be a scold, show the benefit, which is it’s easier to clean up after work.

Also latex gloves cause latex allergies frequently, vinyl gloves can be a good alternative.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#232

Post by croes »

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…

>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"

I doubt that the connection is linear. Half the silica doesn't mean double exposure time has the same effect.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#233

Post by Reason077 »

maakk wrote: post #213
yeeeloit wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, silica is not the problem. Silica is everywhere, we don't wear PPE to drive down a dirt road. It's the silica plus the adhesive additives combined in your lungs that does the damage.

Maybe. Or it's the dose, which sounds quite high when working with engineered stone.

Or the size of the particles. Cutting engineered stone has been shown to generate large quantities of extremely fine particles (< 1 µm). Cutting natural stone or driving on a dirt road, the typical particle sizes are much larger.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#234

Post by adrr »

niccl wrote: post #83
archontes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that folks will install it on site without cutting it?

I've just had two engineered stone counter tops installed. In both cases (different companies) the fitters came and made a template from thick card of the exact size for the top. the tops arrived and fit precisely. One had to have holes for cut in, but I didn't hang around to see if they fitter used PPE

When I picked out my slab, went to the place where they locally manufactured the countertop to the specs of the kitchen. No one was wearing PPE. Installers just dropped it in and didnt need to do anything.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#235

Post by lotsofpulp »

fourthark wrote: post #203
kelnos wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if we can't incentivize doing the right thing by teaching people that they'll die of a respiratory disease in their 30s if they don't wear their PPE, then honestly, that's life. If people choose to do their job in a way that gives them high risk of bad health outcomes, that's on them. Certainly if workers are being coerced into not doing the right thing, that's a problem, and employers need to be fined into o…

You implicitly lay responsibility on the worker first, then on the employer, then on the customer. Perhaps if the order of responsibility were reversed, it would lead to better outcomes.

It would be ridiculous to have any responsibility on the customer.

The only feasible order is government, employer, then worker. The government is tasked with the making the rules and surprise inspections, and the rest follows from there.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#236

Post by nelsondev »

ioseph wrote: post #77
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

I have a 1940s house with solid timber benchtops, yes they take a little more care (no hot pans) but from what I hear stone counters stain easily anyway. The nice thing about wood is you can just sand it back and refinish and it will look amazing again. Large slabs are pretty expensive these days so when installing a kitchen downstairs we went with finger jointed timber, was cheaper than stone and slightly more expen…

The problem I had with wood countertops is that little area behind the sink that is almost always wet.

Either from your sponge, turning off the faucet with wet hands, or just splash back, it always is wet.

Then the wood gets moldy or rots or is disfigured.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#237

Post by dzhiurgis »

_3u10 wrote: post #231
piperswe wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hurts me when I see my tradie trainee husband (at school to be an auto mechanic) skip PPE in places he really shouldn't (e.g. latex gloves when handling carcinogenic fluids). I don't really know as I can do much other than state my objections to deaf ears though.

Those fluids are carcinogenic to drink, not to get on your skin. Don’t be a scold, show the benefit, which is it’s easier to clean up after work. Also latex gloves cause latex allergies frequently, vinyl gloves can be a good alternative.

Buna nitrile is the goat

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#238

Post by zlg_codes »

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…

Good point. Government talks big about regulation and how much they care, but when examined, look! They bend right over for business.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#239

Post by Ekaros »

adolph wrote: post #171
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…

> 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"? It isn’t a good idea to assume linear effects, especially with biology.

Specially when stuff you are comparing something rather novel basically existed before animals moved on land. Stone formations wearing down can causing dust has happened for hundreds of millions of years, if not billions. Biological systems are quite adapted to this type of exposure.

Just like heavy metals, some poisons, and some radioactivity.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#240

Post by eru »

Reason077 wrote: post #218
yeeeloit wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cutting stone and keeping 100% of it out of your lungs is nearly impossible, especially when you are working in uncontrolled environments like someone's kitchen that is being renovated. The PPE available for this sort of work is just not up to the job.

Making driving 100% safe is nearly impossible, but we drive cars built to good crash standards with seatbelts, ABS, AEB, etc. People still die on the roads, but these safety features reduce risk to an acceptable level. Likewise, using decent PPE won't 100% eliminate risk, but it will greatly improve it. Just because PPE isn't 100% effective doesn't mean you shouldn't use it. The other kind of obvious solution with en…

You inadvertently make a good point that driving should probably be taxed a lot heavier in most places.

It's reasonably safe for other people in cars, but it's hell for pedestrians, wheel-chair users and cyclists. So much so, that we have re-organised our whole society around avoiding this danger. Eg kids don't play on the streets anymore.

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