'Safe' alternatives to engineered stone bench tops may not be so safe: study

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-05/study-finds-safety-concerns-in-engineered-stone-alternatives/103185450

by adrian_mrd • 3 years ago

29 63 3 years ago

abc.net.au

nusl3• 3 years ago

Am I the only one that gets really weird vibes from this website and the news it posts? Feels like the UK's Sun, but not as bad.

JimmyAustin• 3 years ago

This is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's website (the Australian national broadcaster a la the BBC). As a whole coverage is pretty good, but the website has gotten more clickbaity in recent years.

nusl3• 3 years ago

All right. The clickbait is pretty prevalent

0-sodium• 3 years ago

It is literally the most trusted news source in Australia...

https://tvtonight.com.au/2020/06/abc-sbs-lead-most-trusted-n...

nusl3• 3 years ago

Perhaps. A quick browse across the front page was filled with articles trying to provoke negative or outraged emotions, much like bad clickbait does. I generally associate this with lower quality reporting.

andrewstuart• 3 years ago

But rich people need engineered stone bench tops. Surely there's a way to get tradespeople to keep making them?

bobchadwick• 3 years ago

Down with the rich and all, yes I agree, but don't most people, regardless of their economic status, need some type of bench top (or countertop, as us Yanks call them)? Seems like this is saying that there's no good stone or "stone" alternative.

kjkjadksj2• 3 years ago

Mine is ceramic tile. Its probably 100 years old.

AlgorithmicTime• 3 years ago

They're pretty much in every recently renovated housing unit... not just rich people houses.

gruez3• 3 years ago

Not to mention that engineered stone is actually cheaper than the alternative (ie. granite) options.

rob74• 3 years ago

CNC comes to mind. Or, if they have to be cut by hand, better equipment (saws with dust collection) and/or breathing masks?

But I don't have to guess, Wikipedia knows it best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis#Prevention

pixl973• 3 years ago

These sets of articles are popular because the strike out at the wealthier with stone countertops, so they tend to gain traction because it highlights an exploited proletariat

These articles wouldn't get the traction if it was instead "There is no safe alternative to concrete". Then people start thinking, well, I have concrete in my house and I don't want to get rid of that.

PPE usage in the construction industry is especially lax. Looking to replace the product with some other material with its own set of tradeoffs isn't needed here. Making the industry conform with the law and expected safety equipment is.

Kirby642• 3 years ago

This seems like… a no duh? Sure I admire finding alternatives that are less bad for you… but when you grind almost anything into a fine dust and aerosolize it, breathing it is really bad. Proper PPE is essential for almost any industry like this.

PeterisP• 3 years ago

It seems quite reasonable to assume that the way to go is preventing people from breathing in ground-up countertops instead of trying to make countertops that would magically be healthy to inhale.

dublinben• 3 years ago

Safer alternatives to engineered stone countertops could include wooden butcher block, tile, stainless steel, etc.

asdfadsfgfdda• 3 years ago

Stainless steel has its own safety issues (hexavalent chromium exposure from welding or grinding)

bafe• 3 years ago

Surely there's more industry knowledge and better tooling/PPE behind stainless steel given the widespread adoption in all kinds of industry? I'd assume the risk for the workers installing it in homes is far lower as the top + sink is usually delivered in a single piece and only needs to be mounted on its support while with engineered stone often the slab is cut to size and reshaped on site

amluto4• 3 years ago

Wood shop dust isn't so great, either. But most (?) professional wood shops ought to have dust collection equipment.

givemeethekeys• 3 years ago

Yup - standard vacuum attachments for sanders, at the very least.

gruez3• 3 years ago

Indeed. Wood dust is a known carcinogen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IARC_group_1_Carcinogens#Compl...

mmcgaha• 3 years ago

Along with keeping the blade cool, a wet saw handles most of the dust problem too.

Kirby642• 3 years ago

It improves things, but wet saws still throw an absolute pile of slurry into the air. Sure, it's weighed down with water, but it's still not great for you.

amluto4• 3 years ago

I would expect that a shop that specializes in cutting countertops would have equipment to cut them with essentially no dust exposure. Water jets come to mind (and people even sell waterjet tools specifically designed for cutting countertops), but a CNC mill with good dust collection ought to be able to do the job pretty well, too.

So why is there so much dust exposure to begin with? Here's an article showing someone attacking a countertop with an angle grinder without dust collection at all:

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/07/425871/deadly-dust-enginee...

Even a basic dust collector attached to that angle grinder (these are cheap!) should make a pretty big difference.

SkyMarshal• 3 years ago

This makes too much sense. Especially using water spray to collect most of the dust at the moment its created and before it diffuses into the air, and perhaps ambient mist to collect some of any remainder.

amluto4• 3 years ago

Have you ever watched an average landscaper break or cut concrete? It’s an unbelievable mess.

eternityforest4• 3 years ago

Is there any trade where people actually use appropriate safety precautions? Our culture seems to be actively anti safety.

It's horrible. Any attempt to protect yourself is met with shame, even if it's something as simple as not wanting to eat a sugary snack someone offers, or wearing earplugs in a dangerously loud bar, or wanting to go get a hand truck instead of lifting a piece of furniture.

mrtesthah3• 3 years ago

No one can force you to feel shame about those things. That's entirely on you.

jacquesm2• 3 years ago

Peer pressure exists to be ignored. If you give in you've lost so just don't give in.

postmodest• 3 years ago

The purpose of Capitalism is to extract as much profit as possible. If we attended to "worker safety" (and extend it from "putting railings around the meat grinders" to "setting office hours that don't slowly give seated workers metabolic disorders"), Capital extraction would halt! Think of the shareholders!

petertodd• 3 years ago

Is there any trade where people actually use appropriate safety precautions?

Have you actually worked in construction or the trades? When I look at the construction/trade workers around me in Canada, the US, and the EU, hardhats, safety glasses, safety shoes, and (where applicable) fall arrest harnesses are all commonly used and used correctly. I've also done construction and trade/engineering-related work myself 10+ years ago, and using all the relevant safety equipment was mandatory and nearly 100% enforced. It didn't take much effort from management to get to close to 100% usage either, as people I worked with generally accepted that the safety measures were worthwhile.

Re: the specific issue mentioned in this article, I've been around a bunch of pottery studios in the past, and every single one of them strictly enforced measures to avoid silicosis. (namely, almost all operations were done with dustless wet clay, and at the end of the day all traces of clay were cleaned up before they could dry, essentially every single time)

huytersd• 3 years ago

So you want to replace stone with some shitty plastic aggregate or some other godawful synthetic material instead of just wearing breathing protection for the couple of hours you’re cutting it? That makes no sense.

pixl973• 3 years ago

Because this article is about pulling heartstrings, not rationality. Stone countertops = rich people, rich people = bad, and rich people should feel guilty about doing said bad thing and spend massive amounts of money on plastic product instead.

If you instead just switch the headline out to concrete it wouldn't generate clicks because everyone has concrete. Also the safety protocols in homebuilding around cutting concrete are just as bad as stone cutting.

If you are cutting anything with a spinning blade you should be wearing PPE. Metal, rocks, plastic, wood, etc. That's where we should demand both laws and enforced requirements for these workers so we're not exploiting and cripping an entire class of people.

inasio• 3 years ago

I'm not sure if the point here is to suggest that marble/granite solid slabs are better, personally perhaps due to rockclimbing experience it pisses me off that there is no pushback on people buying slices off a mountain to put in their kitchen, when there are reasonable alternatives, even very nice ones.

philipkglass• 3 years ago

The article says that natural stone is worse:

The study revealed that cutting natural products like granite was also not safe.

"What we found ... was that the natural products we had in the panel of products that we assessed actually caused the biggest inflammatory response," Professor Zosky said.

bloopernova2• 3 years ago

Somewhat related: There's a dish detergent brand in the US that has a spray version. Not a pump handle squirt-squirt-squirt type, instead it aerosolizes the detergent.

My wife likes it. I'm less enthused, because it definitely feels like I'm breathing part of it in when it's used near me.

Haven't we learned yet that making airborne particles of something is usually a bad idea if people are around?

digging2• 3 years ago

How do you even use an aerosolized detergent? Just reach into the dishwasher, spray, and quickly close the door?

eternityforest4• 3 years ago

I assume it's for the obnoxious activity of hand washing that some of us have to deal with

Hugsun2• 3 years ago

Unfortunately, that's not generally known at all. Most people I speak to are very surprised when they learn that burning candles is pretty much the same as second hand smoking.

EForEndeavour• 3 years ago

Interesting, can you share any further reading? A quick Google turns up surprisingly little evidence-based guidance. For what it's worth, I found this Cleveland Clinic general-audience (non-peer-reviewed) article that concludes "the science isn’t strong enough to suggest we should stop buying and burning candles": https://health.clevelandclinic.org/are-candles-bad-for-you

Intuitively, adding any amount of combustion product to the air is bad, but the above article suggests that burning an occasional candle is inconsequential compared to, say, cooking indoors.

londons_explore• 3 years ago

The risk of using this bench top is minimal. The risk is for the workers making them (or demolishing).

The fix is to never saw this material. Always cut it with a water cutter. Problem solved.*

jacquesm2• 3 years ago

There is this thing called 'Granito/Terazzo' here, it was pretty popular pre-war and well into the 60's when more modern materials took over. And definitely not a rich people thing, you'd see this stuff everywhere. Hallway floors, showers, bathroom floors, bench tops etc. Polishing and cutting that stuff is pretty messy but you can wear proper protection and then it is manageable if you don't do it every day. Any kind of long term exposure to airborne solids is detrimental.

'Safe' alternatives to engineered stone bench tops may not be so safe: study

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