The problem with engineered stone is that when it is cut, ground or polished, it produces silica dust that when inhaled leads to silicosis. Photo: 123RF
Pressure is growing on Australia's government to end the use of engineered stone products that can cause silicosis in the workers who handle them.
Incoming CFMEU (a trade union for construction workers) national secretary Zach Smith said the severity of the action the union was willing to take reflected the severity of the risk to its members.
"This product is killing workers and the reality is Australian workers will keep dying unless we ban engineered stone," he said.
Engineered stone is a manufactured material containing high levels of crushed silica crystals.
Because it is durable and comes in a range of colours, it has become a fashionable choice for kitchen benchtops and bathroom fittings over the past two decades.
The problem with the substance is that when it is cut, ground or polished, it produces silica dust that when inhaled leads to silicosis.
Kyle Goodwin was a fit, young tradie when he started working in the stone benchtop industry in 2004.
Now he is a 37-year-old with silicosis who can't go for a walk without getting out of breath.
"Essentially, it's scarring of the lungs," he said. "You're just suffocating slowly."
Four years ago he was told he had five years to live.
Now he wants the engineered stone he spent many years working with banned.
"This is a preventable illness and we need to make sure that it does not continue to happen," he said.
According to a 2021 report by the government's national dust disease taskforce, nearly one in four workers exposed to silica dust from engineered stone before 2018 has been diagnosed with silicosis.
The report said existing workplace health and safety regulations had not protected stonemasons sufficiently, and recommended further measures to improve the situation, but stopped short of calling for the product to be banned.
Some of the measures workplaces were supposed to have in place while workers handled engineered stone included suppressing dust with the use of water during cutting, ensuring sufficient ventilation, and the use of personal protective equipment such as properly fitting face masks.
Smith said there was no safe level of exposure to silica dust.
He said the construction union knew of a number of workplaces that followed best practice to manage the risk of exposure to silica dust, but cases of silicosis and dust disease arose.
The president of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists, Kate Cole, likened the risk of exposure to silica to that of asbestos and said high-silica stone products should be banned as soon as possible.
"Every day or every year we delay this decision, we just have more workers that are being exposed and unfortunately are likely to contract these debilitating and incurable diseases," she said.
She said there were plenty of other options that builders could use instead, including low-quartz products, natural stone, stainless steel or wood.
She said that before engineered stone products came on the market, people in Australia managed to make benchtops.
A spokesperson for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations said Minister Tony Burke intended to discuss silicosis at a meeting of state work health and safety ministers early next year, including discussing calls to ban engineered stone with high-silica content.
"The government will continue to work with unions to address health issues that arise from exposure to silica dust," the spokesperson said.
Kyle Goodwin said he intended to spend what time he has left keeping other stonemasons safe even though he knew it would be hard on some of them.
"I don't want to see stonemasons out of work. I just want to see them safe," he said.
-ABC