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Australia to ban engineered stone

abc.net.au

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Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#471

Post by amluto »

anon-sre-srm wrote: post #252
amluto wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contractors with brooms are a huge pet peeve of mine at a construction site. Seriously, WTF? You take all the dust and re-suspend as much of it as possible into the air? Every construction site should have a HEPA-filtered vacuum with a filter bag. (The bagless kind is to be reserved for special cases that need it, and people should wear respirators when emptying it, TYVM.). Brooms are for non-vacuumable debris only,…

Keeping dust down with water sprayers should be a thing. Also, there should be particulate counters and VOC sensors all around sites to indicate what level of PPE is non-obvious but needed.

For indoor construction, a water sprayer seems like a mistake. It would turn all that only-mildly-nasty dust into hard-to-remove goo, not to mention making wood soggy and damaging gypsum and other materials.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#472

Post by linsomniac »

alvah wrote: post #193
linsomniac wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~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

I'm struggling to figure out why it would seem so implausible. I got the phrasing from AvE on youtube, and I've said it to him several times during our DIYing together because I'm trying to educate him on using PPE.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#473

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

IlliOnato wrote: post #454
10u152 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not banning businesses. They’re banning a product which is causing deaths. Switch to a alternate product. It’s the same in your analogy of banning a toxic brake fluid.

Nope, the product does not cause death, at least not according to this article. It is production that causes severe and potentially deadly illness. And not because the production process inherently deadly, but because of rampant non-compliance with safety standards. The article does not explain why an obvious solution: certification and severe (severe!) fines for non-compliance would not work. Probably a political is…

> article. It is production that causes severe and potentially deadly illness.

No. It is the cutting of the product (often on-site at the residence) to fit the kitchen or bathroom that causes silica dust. Workers not wearing mask protection and not using proper ventilation fans and vacuums breathe in the dust.

The odd thing is silica dust is also present in natural stones like quartz (very popular in America right now). I don’t understand how this legislation will help since it only bans engineered stone.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#474

Post by burnished »

tedk-42 wrote: post #296
thedays wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people underestimate the risks from asbestos as the disease can take 20-40 years to develop after exposure but it shouldn’t be underestimated. Asbestosis killed over 3,600 people in 2015. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestosis Asbestos has affected all sorts or people, not just in the Navy. A close relative of mine who was a plumber has been diagnosed with it and it is an awful disease. This woman is dying f…

I'm skeptical of the story. Husband wears asbestos ridden clothes all day, maybe wears PPE and what not, but we've tied it the cancer the wife has because of her exposure to the clothes while handling them in the wash? Even if the husband took off his clothes, separately bagged them and then handed them to his wife to clean, it's hard to see how his exposure is less to the point where only she was diagnosed.

Basically asbestos presents an opportunity for things to go wrong and for you to get cancer. There isn't a discrete threshold where you have been over-exposed and now have cancer - think really shit lottery tickets.

So over a population you'd generally expect to see the incidence correlate to the level of exposure, but not in a way that precludes unusual shit like this.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#475

Post by dagw »

IlliOnato wrote: post #454
10u152 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not banning businesses. They’re banning a product which is causing deaths. Switch to a alternate product. It’s the same in your analogy of banning a toxic brake fluid.

Nope, the product does not cause death, at least not according to this article. It is production that causes severe and potentially deadly illness. And not because the production process inherently deadly, but because of rampant non-compliance with safety standards. The article does not explain why an obvious solution: certification and severe (severe!) fines for non-compliance would not work. Probably a political is…

severe (severe!) fines

Unless you can pierce the corporate veil or somehow make owners criminally liable for low safety standards, levelling huge fines at small companies is meaningless, as the company will just end up declaring bankruptcy and the workers will just get hired by the next company over, with equally low standards.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#476

Post by eggy »

What about coal mining in Australia? Should they ban it too? It produces 80% of their electricity, and a low death rate from direct mining incidents, but a 26% increase in mortality compared to the general population most likely due to respiratory and stress-related issues.[0,1]

CWP (Coal Miner's Pneumoconiosis) is the long-term risk vs. the mining accidents, and it involves silicosis too. The US and Australia have lowered these statistics vs. China which is increasing.

Many people mix household cleaners that each contain ammonia and chlorine and create poisonous gases, but usually the concentration of the cleaners is sufficiently low enough to be more of a long-term health hazard, however, industrial cleaners can cause death, though rare, as in this case:

https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/tragic-accide...

The solution is to boost safety practices, heavily fine the offenders, and educate the workers, not ban a product that in its final form is not just a "fashion finish", but a safe, practical, easy-to-clean surface with good durability and dimensionally stable over time.

[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-19/history-of-safety-in-...

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6266950/#:~:tex....

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#477

Post by burnished »

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…

Doubt it has anything to do with women. More like poor long term risk assessment leading to immediate tasks and short term goals being prioritized over more abstract longer term goals.

You've probably crossed a road at a non-ideal location right? Because you had somewhere to be and you figured you were paying attention - the risk was managed. Same dynamic basically.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#478

Post by ceejayoz »

kortilla wrote: post #444
account42 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only short-term unless the supply is static.

That’s not at all how economics works. Unless a technology breakthrough comes in that reduces cost at scale, increased demand increases price. The only exception is if producers are already selling at essentially the marginal cost of production for the whole industry. This scenario is extremely rare, especially in base materials.

Economies of scale can happen just fine without technological breakthroughs.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#479

Post by some_random »

Modified3019 wrote: post #379
Hawxy wrote: post #169

It's very much worth reading the full reasoning within the SafeWork decision (page 56): https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/202... SafeWork's view is that the industry is too much of a non-compliant mess to recommend any other option apart from a complete ban.

Makes sense, this kind of work can have an extremely “toxic” anti-ppe culture that’s impossible to mitigate against without outright burning the industry to the ground. Fines and inspections are easy to dodge when everyone involved is trying to do so. Hell I work in agronomy and it’s hard enough getting seasonal helpers to wear earplugs when riding ATVs all day. Then there was an old supervisor from a former oil chan…

Part of me feels like this is partially the government shirking it's duty to protect workers. Imagine if in the early days of aviation the government looked at the dangers of flight and the difficulty of wrangling pilots, and just threw it's hands up and banned all aircraft.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#480

Post by [deleted] »

eggy wrote: post #476

What about coal mining in Australia? Should they ban it too? It produces 80% of their electricity, and a low death rate from direct mining incidents, but a 26% increase in mortality compared to the general population most likely due to respiratory and stress-related issues.[0,1] CWP (Coal Miner's Pneumoconiosis) is the long-term risk vs. the mining accidents, and it involves silicosis too. The US and Australia have l…

[deleted]
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