Australia's workplace ministers have agreed to implement a national ban on engineered stone, over concerns its use has led to a surge in silicosis cases among workers.
Silicosis can come from a wide variety of sources, basically anything where stone dust occurs can produce it, even natural stone countertop manufacturing has long been known to be dangerous in that regard.
This whole ban feels more like populism than addressing the real problems. Engineered stone has become a popular material, lots of people have worked with it with insufficient safety precautions and now there’s a number of people permanently disabled by it.
Simply banning engineered stone won’t solve that problem, since it will now just happen with other materials.
The underlying point has some validity though. Many materials contain silica, even tiles, although not the same amount. Here are some other examples.
ceramic tiles: 5% to 45%
engineered stone: 80% to 95%
Sandstone: 70% to 90%
Granite: 25% to 60%
Slate: 20% to 40%
autoclaved aerated concrete: 20% to 40%
concrete: less than 30%
brick: 5% to 15%
The cancer council of Australia says “there is currently no evidence to suggest a safe level of silica dust exposure”.
If there is no safe level of silica, then by extension
presumably this would rule out many other products containing silica.
There are mitigation strategies, however they seemingly weren’t good enough for engineered stone, and presumably again by extension many other materials high in silica.
It’s just not clear to me why engineered stone is banned but many other materials potentially high in silica are for choice of better words let off the hook.
But broadly, engineered stone is significantly different because of both its composition and how it’s used. The proof of the pudding, though, is that with its rise in popularity we’ve also seen the rise of these ‘acute accelerated’ cases of silicosis.)
yeah the real issue they need to come down hard on is disregard for oh&s in the building industry, poor education and worker exploitation. I expect this to happen around the same time my grandmother’s pig sprouts wings and takes flight.
Silicosis can come from a wide variety of sources, basically anything where stone dust occurs can produce it, even natural stone countertop manufacturing has long been known to be dangerous in that regard.
This whole ban feels more like populism than addressing the real problems. Engineered stone has become a popular material, lots of people have worked with it with insufficient safety precautions and now there’s a number of people permanently disabled by it.
Simply banning engineered stone won’t solve that problem, since it will now just happen with other materials.
You wouldn’t generally get all federal and state governments signing on to something that is just ‘populism’.
Engineered stone is more dangerous than natural stone because it contains much more silica, and so it has resulted in an acute accelerated form of silicosis: https://www.medicalrepublic.com.au/why-silicosis-is-on-the-rise-and-what-to-do-about-it/24559
The underlying point has some validity though. Many materials contain silica, even tiles, although not the same amount. Here are some other examples.
The cancer council of Australia says “there is currently no evidence to suggest a safe level of silica dust exposure”.
If there is no safe level of silica, then by extension presumably this would rule out many other products containing silica.
There are mitigation strategies, however they seemingly weren’t good enough for engineered stone, and presumably again by extension many other materials high in silica.
It’s just not clear to me why engineered stone is banned but many other materials potentially high in silica are for choice of better words let off the hook.
This comment gives a great summary, better than I can do: https://aussie.zone/comment/5073286
(In case that comment disappears for any reason, though:
Particularly there is this report: https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-02/decision_ris_-_managing_the_risks_of_crystalline_silica_at_work_-_for_publication_pdf.pdf
But broadly, engineered stone is significantly different because of both its composition and how it’s used. The proof of the pudding, though, is that with its rise in popularity we’ve also seen the rise of these ‘acute accelerated’ cases of silicosis.)
yeah the real issue they need to come down hard on is disregard for oh&s in the building industry, poor education and worker exploitation. I expect this to happen around the same time my grandmother’s pig sprouts wings and takes flight.