Comment by mattmaroon
2 years ago
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.
You inadvertently make a good point that driving should probably be taxed a lot heavier in most places.
It's reasonably safe for other people in cars, but it's hell for pedestrians, wheel-chair users and cyclists. So much so, that we have re-organised our whole society around avoiding this danger. Eg kids don't play on the streets anymore.
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Why not use other materials?
Modified acrylic or compact laminate?
That will save lives.
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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.
I believe it’s always done that way in the US when you order granite or other stone countertops. Cutting large heavy slabs on site isn’t efficient.
I thought all you had to do was use water with the saw and wear a respirator. Am I misinformed?
No, you're not misinformed, but some people will conflate a non-perfect protection with 'protection is useless'
It's just bog standard denialism
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?