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'Safe' alternatives to engineered stone bench tops may not be so safe: study
- nusl 3y agoAm 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 3y agoThis 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.
- nusl 3y agoAll right. The clickbait is pretty prevalent
- 0-sodium 3y agoIt is literally the most trusted news source in Australia... https://tvtonight.com.au/2020/06/abc-sbs-lead-most-trusted-news.html https://tvtonight.com.au/2020/06/abc-sbs-lead-most-trusted-n...
- nusl 3y agoPerhaps. 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 3y agoBut rich people need engineered stone bench tops. Surely there's a way to get tradespeople to keep making them?
- bobchadwick 3y agoDown 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.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoMine is ceramic tile. Its probably 100 years old.
- tatersolid 3y agoCutting ceramic tile produces a fuckton of fine dust. Including silicates.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoNot an issue with proper ppe. Same with these countertops honestly. You read the underlying studies and its like everyone with the health issues did not wear any ppe. The people who did wear ppe didn’t have the health issues.
- AlgorithmicTime 3y agoThey're pretty much in every recently renovated housing unit... not just rich people houses.
- gruez 3y agoNot to mention that engineered stone is actually cheaper than the alternative (ie. granite) options.
- rob74 3y agoCNC 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis#Prevention
- Kirby64 3y agoThis 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 3y agoIt 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 3y agoSafer alternatives to engineered stone countertops could include wooden butcher block, tile, stainless steel, etc.
- asdfadsfgfdda 3y agoStainless steel has its own safety issues (hexavalent chromium exposure from welding or grinding)
- bafe 3y agoSurely 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
- pixl97 3y agoThis article isn't really talking about the tiny amounts of on site cuts (which are typically done outside on site anyway). Other articles have shown the shops where this product is cut in mass without any PPE. The shops are a hazard to anyone that gets close as there appears to be about zero dust control. But even this is a tempest in a teacup compared to the amount of concrete cutting occurring without PPE. I don't see concrete being replaced on job sites, so I do wonder what the motivation behind many of these articles are? It's like some industry group that sells a competing product wants more exposure to their product without actually making the workplace safer for the people working with it.
- chris1993 3y agoThe motivation is the large number of workers contracting silicosis
- amluto 3y agoWood shop dust isn't so great, either. But most (?) professional wood shops ought to have dust collection equipment.
- mmcgaha 3y agoAlong with keeping the blade cool, a wet saw handles most of the dust problem too.
- Kirby64 3y agoIt 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.
- amluto 3y agoI 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-engineered-stone-making-california-workers-sick 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 3y agoThis 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.
- amluto 3y agoHave you ever watched an average landscaper break or cut concrete? It’s an unbelievable mess.
- Teever 3y agoI have hundreds of hours on a Stihl TS-420 cutting concrete and plastic pipe for a water and sewer company. The saw even comes with an attachment for a waterline, but the company never provided a water source. And it wasn't because it was a small company or that they had money issues, they just didn't give a shit. Some days the foreman wouldn't even provide us potable drinking water. I can't even express the feeling of dejected irony in realizing that a company that that installs water infrastructure can't provide drinking water to the people doing the installation.
- eternityforest 3y agoIs 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.
- huytersd 3y agoSo 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.
- pixl97 3y agoBecause 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 3y agoI'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 3y agoThe 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.
- bloopernova 3y agoSomewhat 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?
- digging 3y agoHow do you even use an aerosolized detergent? Just reach into the dishwasher, spray, and quickly close the door?
- eternityforest 3y agoI assume it's for the obnoxious activity of hand washing that some of us have to deal with
- lokar 3y agoHand washing is, bad?
- bloopernova 3y agoIn the US, most non-studio apartments have dishwashers. When I moved here from the UK, where dishwashers are more of a luxury item, I was confused by just how much some people loathed hand-washing dishes.
- lokar 3y agoOh, I thought they were complaining about washing your hands.
- digging 3y agoOh, that makes more sense. Terminology mistake on my part, the word "detergent" to me only refers to the soaps used in machines. Although, on reflection, it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense in that context...
- londons_explore 3y agoThe 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.*
- jacquesm 3y agoThere 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.