Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australia to ban engineered stone

abc.net.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 542 posts

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#521

Post by suprjami »

simondotau wrote: post #385
Reason077 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why isn’t it being cut wet? Surely if dust is the problem, water is the solution.

Yes, it is. There's an ABC article about this, they interviewed one particular business owner who has gone to great lengths to get good equipment which cuts engineered stone with wet saws which don't generate dust, and has worked hard to instill a culture of safety with his workers. Nobody working there has silicosis.

As per the rest of the comments here, it just seems that most tradies would rather literally die than implement any reasonable safety precaution.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#522

Post by hilbert42 »

10u152 wrote: post #406
Modified3019 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I work in the construction industry. We have about 1:10 ratio of “supervision” to contractors. Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle. We kick about 1 person off site permanently, every day for something egregiously dumb. The contractor just sends them to another job. And of all the places I’ve worked, my current employer is one of the best, takes it very seriously.

"Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle."

Why is this? I often see firsthand or on television people working in dusty environments with little or no concern for the dust that they are breathing in. It especially horrifies me when I know that dust is silica or like, or perhaps even contains some asbestos. I wince every time I see professional stonemasons chiseling away or using diamond saws to cut up slabs of stone without wearing masks. Surely, if anyone, they ought to be aware of the risks.

I've occasionally had to work in such environments for short periods but I've never done so without wearing a n95/P2 type mask and even then I consider them inadequate protection and go to considerable effort to minimize my time in the dusty environment. I even go to the extent of putting on the mask and removing it outside in a dust-free area so as to minimize breathing in any residual dust.

Whenever I ask others around me why they don't take precautions I never get sensible answers or they offer paltry excuses such as masks fog one's glasses.

Despite all the exposure about the dangers of asbestos in recent decades, the greater dangers of dust inhalation generally just hasn't sunk in. The question is why.

In many respects this rejection seems to closely mimic the rejection of masks during COVID. One wonders what's actually needed to overcome the resistance to wearing PPE. (We've overcome PPE resistance re visibility with the full acceptance of fluorescent hi-vis clothing, so why not dust masks?)

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#523

Post by Log_out_ »

hilbert42 wrote: post #522
10u152 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the construction industry. We have about 1:10 ratio of “supervision” to contractors. Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle. We kick about 1 person off site permanently, every day for something egregiously dumb. The contractor just sends them to another job. And of all the places I’ve worked, my current employer is one of the best, takes it very seriously.

"Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle." Why is this? I often see firsthand or on television people working in dusty environments with little or no concern for the dust that they are breathing in. It especially horrifies me when I know that dust is silica or like, or perhaps even contains some asbestos. I wince every time I see professional stonemasons chiseling away or using diamond…

Ppe is usually bad designed, horrible to wear and has bad side-effects that are not documented. Better solutions exist(like sucking dust away into filters at the saw blade or actively air pressures masks) but companies want the cheap unusable minimum crap. Which then nobody uses and which then gets them thus out of all future lawsuits. It's a ritual to calm the lawyer priests, the workers health does not factor into it.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#524

Post by tinco »

ktm5j wrote: post #500
tinco wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the article? These people are very young, and deeply regret the way they decided to live their lives. And tradies is not some kind of slur, it's how they refer to their colleagues across the trades. And wtf is up with just assuming these people who don't wear PPE don't think they have a great life with a lot to live for, there's literally a 35yr old dude with 3 loving kids in one of the pictures of…

Sorry if that was off base, I'm not in a good place right now.

Sorry you're feeling bad, hope you get out of it soon. I'm a bit tired working two jobs and a baby at home so I probably went in a bit too hard as well.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#525

Post by Doxin »

oooyay wrote: post #495
Doxin wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comfort you'd probably want to get a positive air pressure mask. Those things are wildly underrated. Can even stick on a volatiles filter when relevant.

This is what I wear for carpentry/wood working. It's almost identical to the mask I wore in the military for CBRN just different filters and far lighter. Suggestion to look for masks that have larger outter and inner seals if you have glasses or low cut facial hair/stubble respectively as they'll continue to seal.

I believe 3M makes a mask that pretty much doesn't have a seal at all, instead relying on the positive air pressure to keep crap out. That has always seemed like the best solution comfort-wise to me. Anything that seals to the face will end up sweaty at the seals. Should work with basically any variety of lush woodworking beard too.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#526

Post by hilbert42 »

Log_out_ wrote: post #523
hilbert42 wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle." Why is this? I often see firsthand or on television people working in dusty environments with little or no concern for the dust that they are breathing in. It especially horrifies me when I know that dust is silica or like, or perhaps even contains some asbestos. I wince every time I see professional stonemasons chiseling away or using diamond…

Ppe is usually bad designed, horrible to wear and has bad side-effects that are not documented. Better solutions exist(like sucking dust away into filters at the saw blade or actively air pressures masks) but companies want the cheap unusable minimum crap. Which then nobody uses and which then gets them thus out of all future lawsuits. It's a ritual to calm the lawyer priests, the workers health does not factor into…

Agreed, PPEs are often badly designed, often excessively expensive and often not conveniently accessible when needed but I've always taken the view that wearing them is the lesser of two evils. Silicosis and especially mesothelioma are truly evil diseases so I'm surprised so many who are at high risk of exposure aren't worried about them.

You say PPEs have bad side effects but as I've mentioned those whom I've asked never explain what they are. Why? And why are they undocumented?

Re sucking dust away, active air pressure masks etc., I agree they're a good idea and ought to mandatory in many environments. I accept sucking dust away as the norm on my table saws and planers etc. but even so I still wear a mask (although not an active pressure one) as the sucking up is not 100% effective. Also, what happens in environments where it is not practical to suck away dust such as a stonemason working up on the side of a building or such? The only solution has to be PPEs.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#527

Post by hankman86 »

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.

Australian here. We recently had a kitchen bench top made from engineered stone installed. I was previously entirely oblivious to the risks involved. Suffice it to say that we would have chosen a different material had I known the health burden of inhaling the dust during preparation/cutting.

The contractor who installed the bench top for us was however very diligent in alerting us to what safety measures we should follow should any on-site cutting be required at our place. Which it wasn’t in the end. So at least he was aware that the sawdust is a major health hazard.

But that’s one contractor, which does not represent an entire industry. Engineered stone is fashionable and I imagine there are many black sheep out there doing it for cheap with under-trained or unsupervised personnel.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#528

Post by stephenr »

hilbert42 wrote: post #522
10u152 wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the construction industry. We have about 1:10 ratio of “supervision” to contractors. Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle. We kick about 1 person off site permanently, every day for something egregiously dumb. The contractor just sends them to another job. And of all the places I’ve worked, my current employer is one of the best, takes it very seriously.

"Getting people to wear PPE is a constant, ongoing 12 hour a day battle." Why is this? I often see firsthand or on television people working in dusty environments with little or no concern for the dust that they are breathing in. It especially horrifies me when I know that dust is silica or like, or perhaps even contains some asbestos. I wince every time I see professional stonemasons chiseling away or using diamond…

Having watched several Thai builders using the squint method to protect their eyes when stick welding, happily welding together galvanised steel, working on electrical circuits without turning off breakers, and just flat out skipping electrical earthing, I'll never again be surprised by how many safety corners people will cut just because.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#529

Post by stephenr »

some_random wrote: post #479
Modified3019 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless you're suggesting the government hire literal nannies to follow every construction worker around and forcibly make them wear the correct PPE, it seems like this action IS the government doing its duty to protect the workers - largely from themselves it seems.

Re: Australia to ban engineered stone

#530

Post by AdamN »

kortilla wrote: post #445
AdamN wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what it is. Criminal liability is a deterrent model with a very high bar that is usually used when other mechanisms are not scalable. The number of people determined to be criminally liable in a country like Australia for a labor offense is going to be very small and focused on the absolute worst offenders years after the offense.

Okay, then that’s just saying we “let the market forces work out not murdering your own employees”. It dilutes the statement to be meaningless. Criminal liability is a massive government intervention which is the exact opposite of allowing market forces to decide.

It's not the opposite. The opposite would be banning the activity at multiple levels (like the war on drugs). Criminal liability is a very thin lever from the government - it obviously is hugely material to the person charged but charging would only occur in a small fraction of cases and the final judgement would likely be well below the maximum.

For instance, if I drive 10mph over the speed limit and hit somebody and kill them, I may be criminally liable. However the percentage of people in this set charged (and convicted) in such situations is not high.

Post reply on HN