Comment by IlliOnato

2 years ago

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 issue.

I've noticed in the article that trade unions applauded the ban, and I wonder why.

5 comments

IlliOnato

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dagw  2 years ago

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.

TedDoesntTalk  2 years ago

> 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.

  • tga_d  2 years ago

    Well at least according to the article, there was a very clear direct correlation with the artificial stuff. Based on the quotes in the article, it seems like most believe it's something to do with the composition of the engineered stone itself, but it could plausibly just be it's so cheap it makes installation more common. Either way, the reasoning of "there is a very clear correlation between the popularity of this material and this debilitating disease, and regulation doesn't seem to be working, so let's just phase it out" seems like sound reasoning to me.

  • IlliOnato  2 years ago

    I see.

    I thought the product was actual tabletops and the like. But this is terminology.

    What I did not quite get was that what I'd call "production", i.e. making the actual tabletops, happens not at a central facility but at customer homes. This is much harder to monitor and control.

    In this light the ban makes more sense.