Comment by defrost
2 years ago
> All the people who were cutting engineered stone with unsafe methods, are now just going to be cutting granite and other natural stone with the same safety practices that led to this being banned.
> I really don't get it.
Before engineered stone took off like crazy people were already cutting natural stone, working as stone masons, working at BGC quarries (stone mining, crushing, grading, delivery).
After engineered stone became fashionable the rates of silicosis in under 35 year old tradespeople spiked in a sharply noticable way.
After the engineered stone ban things will likely return to previous levels of "it happens but it's acceptably rare".
For whatever reason ( . . . insert theory . . . ) engineered stone manufacture and cutting is much much much worse wrt health issues.
For whatever reason your desk bound rational rule of thumb doesn't track against the data.
Not saying those figures aren't valid, but isn't it also possible that the increased affordability of man-made stone meant that these workers were doing more "stone" installations as opposed to tile or other options?
Edit to just link the article rather than my silly speculation about particle sizes and types:
Reference: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/resp.14625
"The qualitative comparison of in vitro responses between the categories of particles we examined revealed some interesting patterns. Firstly, the ES dusts were the most potent stimulus in inducing cytotoxicity and pro-inflammatory responses in epithelial cells while the standard silica sample was particularly toxic to macrophages. All particles (ES, BM,NS and standard silica) showed some potential to promote IL-8 (CXCL8) and TNF-α production in macrophages, as well as IL-1β, with the exception of natural stone. These observations are consistent with our overarching hypothesis that particle characteristics are key drivers of the lung cell response and, therefore, the risk of disease. In more in-depth analyses with a focus on ES dusts, we found that the quartz concentration was significantly associated with the inflammatory response in macrophages. This is an important observation as there has been consistent rhetoric regarding the crystalline silica content of ES being the key driver of the high disease prevalence. 7,39Indeed, crystalline silica has been shown to be related to the dose-dependent macrophage accumulation response,40aggravated inflammatory cell infiltration, thickened alveolar walls and enhanced expression of collagens. 41However, the relationship between quartz and the macrophage inflammatory response was not the sole driver of the cellular responses we observed."
Hmm, this isn’t crazy.
IIRC in the nineties and earlier, porcelain tile countertops were very common. Granite and marble were exotic.
Porcelain is high in silicates, but not so high in silica. Glaze is (I think) amorphous, like glass. And your average tile installer cuts with a wet saw.
Marble is mostly calcium carbonate. Granite contains lots of quartz.
Engineered stone is easy to cut on site. Real cheap to work with that's why it beat Porcelain.
I don't think Porcelain is as dangerous.
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> For whatever reason ( . . . insert theory . . . ) engineered stone manufacture and cutting is much much much worse wrt health issues.
My theory: engineered stone allowed us plebs to get stone benches. Previously we had stainless, Formica and other bench tops that were less toxic to work with.
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.
> Exactly, silica is not the problem
It is. The air-driven rock drills were called "widowmakers" by miners because of silicosis that quickly reaped its operators.
> Silica is everywhere, we don't wear PPE to drive down a dirt road.
Silica down the road is not in the form of fine dust.
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.
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It's the bozos working with the stuff without proper PPE.
I watched a grave marker carver absolutely bathing in dust with just a thin bandanna, I was in there for 5 minutes and was left choking in their hazardous work environment.
WitH sufficient PPE and dust control, it's not a problem. This is just barking up the wrong tree because they can't get workers to not be idiots, so they pick a scapegoat to ban at random. It's not fucking asbestos. It's apparent but ineffective motion by expediency.
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OK, fair, and tragic, but is the only solution banning it entirely? What about requiring PPE?
There are a whole lot of jobs that are safe when done properly and unsafe, when not done properly. It seems as if they are punishing an entire industry for not knowing what they didn’t know.
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 engineered stone is to avoid cutting it at the installation site. If it's cut to spec at the factory in a controlled environment (surely not that difficult in this age of CAD design etc), you wouldn't be blasting dust around during installation.
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> 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.
I'm building a house, and I have a stone countertop installed. None of the cutting was done on-site. All the work was done in a specialized workshop.
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I thought all you had to do was use water with the saw and wear a respirator. Am I misinformed?
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I think that’s simply untrue. You’re not cutting the stone in kitchens, it’s cut at the warehouse and transported to the kitchen. In the US we’ve regulated this and while our record isn’t 100% safety due to non-compliance (which is always the case) we’ve got a much lower rate than Australia despite presumably selling a lot more of it.
PAPR is fine? and available?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Cute but lacking depth.
If you feel that way, take it up with:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/resp.14625
https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA37...
and the tradies getting physical reactions in their lungs from the dust.
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