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Australia to ban engineered stone

abc.net.au

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Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#341

Post by bowsamic »

globular-toast wrote: post #333
bowsamic wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly no better here in Germany, which surprised me. In the UK health and safety is much more extreme. Here in Germany it’s rare to see workers taking any kind of safety precautions

But still the "real men" on UK building sites and trades shun PPE. It's just a dumb man thing. I often wonder if they think every day there's a chance of a woman seeing and thinking how manly and hot they are for not even needing wimpy protection. Here the construction vehicles have a green flashing light on to indicate that the user has a seat belt on. They get round that by just buckling up then sitting on the belt…

Perhaps, though still my experience seeing building sites in the UK still seems to have way more health and safety and risk assessments. As I said in the other comment, in Germany it's not rare at all to see road workers with heavy machinery, fumes, and dust, who are wearing no ear protection, no goggles, no mask, and no hard hat. That would be an extremely rare sight in the UK.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#342

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

drivebyadvice wrote: post #226
stephen_g wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s incredible how bad tradies are at PPE. When my solar panels were being installed on my house, the electrician was happily about to drill through asbestos cement eave lining before I stopped him, and at least made him put on a disposable P2 respirator mask I had lying around. But he still released asbestos fibres into the air and the ceiling cavity where his colleagues were working, and will have got it on his cl…

The talk in the trade is that asbestos is way overblown and it mostly affected people installing it in ships for the Navy. They worked in tight spaces with lots of asbestos in the air, lining the ship and its pipes with it, all day every day. I don't know how true that is but I've heard the same exact story from several different contractors. I do know that getting those linoleum/asbestos floor tiles ripped up will c…

Official statistics (in Spain, which is where I'm from and have read them) don't agree with that. Plenty of construction workers and various related workers, like plumbers, etc. have died from asbestos.

As an anecdote, you could even die from asbestos from working at a TV station... The Spanish public TV station used asbestos as insulation in stages and apparently, when there were vibrations from loud sound, applauses, etc., dust particles fell on the workers and public. A famous TV anchor, José María Íñigo, died from that, as well as other workers from the station.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#343

Post by vintermann »

RCitronsBroker wrote: post #338
vintermann wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that a lot in public outdoor construction where I live the last ~10 years. Whenever there's the slightest chance of dust, they have giant water mist spraying machines in addition to the PPE.

may i ask where you live? I’ve worked outdoor construction as a teen for a while, even up till now, I’ve never seen mist sprayers in use round here in Germany.

Western Norway. The rock here is high in quartzite I hear, maybe that's got something to do with it?

Surely you use mist sprayers during building demolition though? That's where I first saw them.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#344

Post by MandieD »

killingtime74 wrote: post #211
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…

I mean if people break the law there's no need for the law? Speeding is illegal and kills many. The alternative, driving slower, is not perfectly safe. I guess the Germans don't criminalise speeding?

It’s a lot easier to get a one to three month driving ban in Germany for speeding than in the US, and a driving ban in Germany means “you may not drive at all.”

20 mph over gets a one month driving ban plus about a 200 EUR fine.

Only the longer, rural stretches of Autobahns still have unlimited speed, and your insurance probably has the condition that they won’t pay out if you were going over the national recommended limit (130 km/h, or about 80 mph)

It’s a looser driving environment than most of its neighbors (Switzerland is covered in speed cameras), but it’s nowhere near the nationwide speed track a lot of Americans imagine it is.

Get caught speeding enough, and you can lose your license for longer, or even for life. Driving is a privilege in Germany - there’s always the bus and train, or somewhere to move that has them.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#345

Post by rightbyte »

medion wrote: post #181
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…

Completely anecdotal but my father in law is a stone mason at 75 years old, working since 16 and wears zero PPE. Not even ear muffs on a large cutting machine the size of an SUV. Wears open toe sandals. Incredibly, he is insanely fit, not an ounce of hearing loss, and works full time to this day. I helped him lay a stone wall this year and I dare say he’s possibly stronger than me at almost half his age. It’s honestl…

Both hearing loss from bangs and lung degradation from dust is probably very hereditary?

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#346

Post by RCitronsBroker »

killingtime74 wrote: post #211
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…

I mean if people break the law there's no need for the law? Speeding is illegal and kills many. The alternative, driving slower, is not perfectly safe. I guess the Germans don't criminalise speeding?

just saying, Germany enforces speeding laws DAMN strict. We have radar cameras ("Blitzer") and random police patrols with handheld or mobile equipment.

The only thing different here is that we don’t have a general speed limit, if sections of the autobahn meet the safety requirements, they can be marked unrestricted. You can drive as fast as you want there, but the majority of sections are limited to 130km/h due to steep(ish) curves, visibility, traffic and noise pollution guidelines.

That said, we do love our Autobahn and there ARE quite a few unrestricted sections left, my favorite is the A30. All open, starting at the NL border up until Osnabrück.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#347

Post by omnimus »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #279
stephen_g wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s incredible how bad tradies are at PPE. When my solar panels were being installed on my house, the electrician was happily about to drill through asbestos cement eave lining before I stopped him, and at least made him put on a disposable P2 respirator mask I had lying around. But he still released asbestos fibres into the air and the ceiling cavity where his colleagues were working, and will have got it on his cl…

There's a lot of people living in really old substandard houses with Asbestos here in Canada too. The decline of the middle class, and economy where a new house costs 1 million, while the average salary is 59k made it nearly impossible for people to afford to build a new house. So the vas† majority of people in old homes will be stuck in them.

Asbestos is fine if you dont drill/breathe it. If its fire insulant between drywall it was never proven to be health issue. Its not like its radioactive or something

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#348

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#349

Post by rightbyte »

engineer_22 wrote: post #306
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…

It's really frustrating to be bathing in these holier-than-thou attitudes on the Internet these days. I've noticed the language on social media is also getting worse. I really enjoy the people you can meet on the internet, but the flippant disrespect is really hard for me to accept as normal. OP your comment is not the worst of them, but it seems to be indicative of a trend. I wish you well.

It is a kind of "cope" mechanism I think. One is essentially blaming the victims so that you won't get depressed.

In the extreme case they only feel sorry for animals or small children, since they are always innocent.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#350

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

My kitchen has engineered stone (Silestone). The seller told me that as long as I followed some basic precautions like not putting hot things directly on it, it would last for a long time without visible wear. Basically they sold it as extremely hard, the most durable material. The truth is that 10 years later, treating it very well, the edge is full of chips (some of them rather large) that for all I know appeared spontaneously, without hitting it with anything. In my previous home, a rented flat with a cheap granite countertop, it remained intact after around 10 years of much less careful usage (although, to be frank, it was ugly as hell... But there is aesthetically nice granite as well, I think).

I was already decided to not buy engineered stone again because it seems to basically be overhyped crap to scam uninformed people like me with. If apart from that it causes such health hazards... Good riddance if they ban it.

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