According to recent news reports, the LA County Board of Supervisors is considering a ban on engineered quartz countertops, due to the number of workers being harmed during fabrication and installation processes.
Australia has been strongly considering a ban for the same reasons.
Respirable crystalline silica causes irreparable damage to lung tissue. Repeated high exposure to respirable silica during the cutting and grinding of quartz countertops can lead to silicosis, an incurable condition.
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With the continued rise in popularity of this countertop material, more workers are getting sick.
News reports seem shocked about the matter, despite the risks and occupational hazards being well-documented and highly cautioned about over the years.
In 2016, the NY Times reported – Popular Quartz Countertops Pose a Risk to Workers.
OSHA published extensive new safety guidelines in 2016, regarding the occupational exposure to respirable crystalline silica – standard 1926.1153.
Here is a 2-page OSHA Fact Sheet describing their respirable crystalline silica standard for construction. Here is another reference of Table 1 control methods with images of representative tools.
OSHA’s guidelines were published more than 7 years ago.
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It seems that there are two potential paths forward. Alarmed government and health officials will likely either seek to protect workers by banning engineered quartz countertops, or push for improved worker awareness and enforcement of airborne silica control and safety measures.
eddie sky
I love my Engineered Quartz countertop! I didn’t know that workers weren’t wearing OSHA respirators and cutting/grinding without them. I just took it for granite!
In other news, a quarry down the road emits asphalt fumes (can’t be good, I smell it 1/2 mile away), and lack of full water abatement to the crusher dust, along with tandems that have silica dust on wheels and vehicles as they speed down your county roads…
Lance Peters
“I just took it for granite!”
That was good! LOL!
MC703
My community successfully fought off the expansion of a large quarry plant here in South Central VA. If you’re being serious and not trolling, I can connect you with a POC at an environmental advocacy non-profit law firm that helped us out and hopefully can help your community deal with hazards created by the quarry in your community.
David
One has to wonder how long the quarry was there before the people that complained about it moved in? You see it all the time when people move next to a farm and then complain about farm stuff happening on the farm. I hate to see the signs when you enter a town or county that state that it is a right to farm, town/county. The governmental entity shouldn’t have to point out the obvious and people that are buying into a community should do their homework and understand what the area entails!
fred
It makes sense that the fabrication and cutting of a material that uses resins and silica particles would be a lung hazard. We installed all sorts of countertops for customers over my 50-year professional life. At one time laminate (e.g. Formica) was king – and we did a lot of fabrication with that. Then solid surface materials (e.g. Corian) got trendy. Then it was stone. At first our customers thought that granite was the bee’s knees – but soon word spread that granite wasn’t perfect. As it turns out nothing is. Then, we had customers who wanted the exotic (things like tempered glass with embedded decorative elements) – or polished concrete. All come with different attributes and associated hazards or environmental issues.
In my houses I have a mix of granite, marble, soapstone, quartz (and other engineered “stone”), butcher block and stainless steel. All seem to work – in different applications – but the “quartz” has proved to be low maintenance and looks good.
Maybe quartz countertop fabrication is too inherently unsafe to be ameliorated using proper worker PPE and process improvements. If that proves true – it will be a pity – since the material offers a nice option.
carl
I have the philosophy of “if it generates dust when I cut, sand, or otherwise work with it, wear PPE” regardless of whatever safety guidelines say.
Ben
Don’t be bringing that common sense in here. This is the Internet – we spout wild hysteria and nonsense.
Personally, I hook up an Air-Force style oxygen mask directly to my sander’s dust port so I can most efficiently breathe in as much sawdust as possible.
Robert
The very first thing they taught us in environment protection and engineering classes was that everything is a potential pollutant, if it’s in the wrong place. So the people in that field in the trenches have to manage the risks. The management solution may be an outright ban but it doesn’t have to be.
M
Well according to Prop 65 everything causes cancer in CA…so the easy solution is don’t live in CA
But in all seriousness. This is why you wear PPE. If it makes dust and you’re not in a well ventilated environment (and one might argue even then), mask up.
Robert
Actually Prop 65 is a good cautionary warning about the unintended consequences of overreach. Since, as you correctly say M everything is labeled as a potential carcinogenic, mostly
for liability reasons, the Prop 65 notices are ubiquitous and so you hardly pay attention to them. They are just visual noise.
Bonnie
Mostly there’s no penalty for false reporting. A ton of those notices aren’t required, but the manufacturers just slap them on willy-nilly rather than actually checking their product.
Randy
It’s a surprisingly coordinated effort to undermine the regulation. Manufacturers already know what’s in their products, but want to hide that from consumers. It’s much better to label everything in a way that mocks Californians.
Robert
Hard to prove if it was intentional or unintentional. I guess it depends on whom you want to believe. In one of the classes we had an attorney mixed in with the technical types, he wanted to understand the science behind environment protection better. When this very subject came up he said the manufacturers had fought Prop 65 tooth and nail and mutated body parts. But then in practicality the manufacturers realized Prop 65 didn’t matter. Since the labels were slapped on everything, consumers had no alternative products to buy.
Franco Calcagni
This is kind of like what you see on so, so, many food products and related, “may contain peanuts” or “this product may have come into contact with peanut products”.
I get the impression this is an easy “slap on the product” for plausible deniability for the company.
I do not know how the laws work, but get the impression that by making this statement, is to legally cover their butts.
Probably similar with slapping PROP 65 on everything; they warned you.
Shawn Y
The process for getting an ingredient flagged as potentially carcinogenic and thus prop 65 labeled was heavily discussed the last time it was big in the news regarding coffee: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/30/598348764/fact-check-calif-judge-rules-coffee-must-come-with-a-cancer-warning-but-should-i.
As I recall, the list is reviewed each year and the advocates against everything line up to add their evil ingredient of the year. There is no opposing side at the panel. The list goes out and if your product has or had been in contact w said ingredient, you’ll need new packaging for the coming year. If you actually have the gall to disagree, file a lawsuit and the burden of proof is on you to prove that your ingredient definitely causes zero harm.
You can imagine no one will fight this, except Starbucks. Check the list out. It’s very exhaustive and so in this case, it doesn’t seem like a liability issue of just in case but that the product likely has some amount of a prop65 item in it.
JR Ramos
Geez. Bad bosses (and bad employees I guess). 45 years ago we knew that concrete dust was a serious health risk in prestress fabs and whatnot. I had a friend who got a pretty serious case of “blood poisoning” and that pretty much ended his employment there, took months and months to recover and a fairly long stay in the hospital at first. His superiors weren’t big on PPE, nor on trying to keep temperatures at reasonable levels in the barns, and my friend would only don a cheap dust mask at certain times – paid the price for it.
Glad they didn’t ban concrete….
Derek
I just saw an article about this over the weekend. It was saying workers had no PPE and some were getting terminal lung diseases after only working for a few years. Some still in their mid-20s.
The guys who just cut up and jackhammered my neighbors front walkway weren’t wearing any PPE despite clouds of dust going everywhere. They worked for a concrete/masonry company. I said to my wife I couldn’t believe they were doing that without anything.
Ct451
I’m sure people will find other ways to generate the same dust even if counter-tops are banned. The other day I asked someone who was cutting up concrete pavers on the sidewalk with an angle grinder, generating a cloud to put on a mask. He said it’s fine he’s only doing it for a few minutes…. The dust made a mustache under his nose.
Saulac
The real cause is how much better saw blades are these day. They are shockingly good. They allow anyone (read: those do not understand PPE) to dry cut stone, concrete, metal…with ease. Wet cut used to be the only way. Are they gonna ban pavers and concrete as well?
Hon Cho
A few years back there was an article on silica dust injuring workers who sandblast denim. Uninformed workers and employers who don’t provide PPE have long been a problem in industrial settings. It’s not surprising that most of the injured workers are immigrants given the high numbers of immigrants in those types of industrial jobs. The answer isn’t to ban the product, it’s to make sure employers use processes that don’t harm workers nor the environment. Unfortunately, that does have real costs and will increase prices to buyers and perhaps push the businesses to areas with less concern for worker and environmental safety.
Chris I
I gotta try sandblasting my denim!
I usually just toss them in the hamper.
SecretSquirrel
I’m a carpentry contractor.
Every stone fabricator/installer I’ve seen on a job NEVER wears a mask, and at most use a crappy Rigid shop vac while cutting that just blows the dust out the back. All this usually happens in a clients home/kitchen.
Its ridiculous that the owners of these companies don’t insist on dust extractors and respirators.
Its also insane to me that the General Contractor on the job does not insist on dust extractors and respirators.
Blake
Ahhh yes…… in classic government overreach instead of enforcing the current regulations that require employees to protect their employees. Let’s just take a fantastic product off the market. I’m sure no other countertops produce silica dust…. i.e. concrete and granite.
Brian
California.
Jd
Yeah, those asshats, always trying to, like, not have people die in horrible and preventable ways. How dare they! They should be more like my state and our glorious leader DeathSantis. Profits over people!!!!
John E
I like to call him Ron DeathSentence.
Tim D.
There should be some reasonable solutions to this problem, the hardest part being informing employees and enforcing the practices on employers. A few big lawsuits will fix that problem.
Silica dust is nasty stuff (and I’m no expert), but from what I’ve read there’s not a simple mask that will fix the issue. Humidity, water, proper ventilation, positive pressure suit/mask for the worker are some potential solutions. Could they not just use a cnc waterjet to pre-cut the materials before sending them on site?
That being said, are they going to outlaw concrete? Media blasting? Going to the beach on a windy day? Granite should also contain silica dust, will those be similarly banned? It just seems silly to outlaw it vs. put proper safety measures in place.
Dh
I live in MN, home of a manufacturer in countertops. We’re not a big community and this business being forced closed would devastate our community. I can not comment about the PPE in the plant. I’ve never been inside. And I would hope with each year more tests are ran and PPE modified to current standings based off those test results. This is where OSHA needs to maybe step up to insure everyone is safe, IF they ( they= manufactors of counters, the construction companies doing the installations, the individual carpenter doing something wrong.).
My family in the 70’s,80’s and 90’s built custom homes. PPE wasn’t enforced on the job sites. Maybe its due to a learning curve. If I buy the product to have installed in my home, a video about correct installation and the PPE necessary to do the job should be built into the price for the contract to review. It should have the option to state they have the necessary equipment. You have to pull permits when you build. Maybe there needs to be a permit for countertop or any product that can cause irreparable damages to ones health. It would be like life jackets on a boat. There’s six people on the boat, so there better be six upto code life jackets. In this case – six respirators. And whatever vacuum option works with the product being cut. Inspector signs off that the proper PPE is on the jobsite. Contractor signs ofc his employees will wear the PPE provided.
This is something that won’t change overnight. Especially for a dominate masculine, type job.
Bruce
There are three ways to mitigate a hazard:
1. Engineering controls, make the process safe as designed (ie water cutting into a table)
2. Guards and shields, keep the worker away from the process
3. PPE, the last resort for any hazard.
PPE is a PITA, it gets in the way and requires proper training and use. Ever see somebody with ear plugs barely touching the ear canal?
Respirators are the worst. You need a fit test and a health check before you can even be trained to use them and they are complicated. Skip the fit test and odds are contaminates will leak around the edge. Your facial hair is probably going to have to go. Skip the health check and your worker make have a heart attack on the job site. Picking the correct filter requires strong knowledge of the hazard that isn’t always clear. Adding a language barrier makes it even worse.
Robert
Bruce, respectfully, the standard hazard methodology has a step before what you list as # 1. Choose a different material. The banning of the quartz in this case. We just went through a decision tree like this for hexavalent chromium. Physically it’s wonderful stuff for the application. But we decided the toxicology drawbacks were too significant and somewhat reluctantly chose a different corrosion protection solution.
Jd
The people complaining that banning the countertops is government overreach are the same ones that will complain about OSHA stepping up to make sure proper safety practices are followed and the higher taxes that will come to hire more OSHA workers. I’d prefer the latter but the countertop companies are forcing the former themselves by not already protecting their workers.
John E
Exactly.
Dave P
Holy cow, I get the the health risk. But what about many other materials being used for construction, they all have some elements of dangers too? Let’s all ban everything outright, no?How about starting first with companies investing on educating their workers, upgrade air-dust management equipment and machines. Most importantly strict enforcement and fines to any who don’t comply. Do this for the next 5 years and see if the attitude changes. I’ve seen shops who follows strict safety protocol and it seems to be doing good with minimal to no incident.
MtnRanch
It doesn’t matter what material is used as long as the prevailing attitude in construction is that “Real Men” don’t wear PPE.
I don’t mind the concept that in America you can be as stupid as you want to be, I’m just tired of having to pay for it increased insurance and worker’s comp costs.
Has any considered how much plastic these massive countertops introduce into the environment now and when they are later trashed? There’s are perfectly good natural, sustainable and more durable alternatives – marble, granite, and quartzite. Same dust but without all the unnessary and (IMHO) ugly plastic.
Stuart
Granite and marble are not renewable resources.
Quartz countertops aren’t plastic. Are you thinking about laminate countertops?
Ct451
I think if it called “engineered” the bonding agent is plastic. If it’s “sintered” then its not.
Stuart
Hmm.
Quartz countertops seem to typically have a small percentage of resin. I can’t find a lot about sintered stone countertops, other than they can be made with recycled materials and contain mineral, metal, and ceramic powders.
Sintering is a high pressure and temperature process. Technically they’re still engineered countertops or panels.
Ct451
Well… everything is engineered….. and if they are “formed” then they are “plastic”:)
Typically “engineered” quartz is heat sensitive because of the plastic and cheaper than sintered stone. You can cook directly on sintered stone by having the induction coils underneath.
Rx9
Workers on elevated jobsites wear hard hats to protect from falling debris. Arborists wear chaps and gloves to protect from chainsaw injury. Linemen wear high voltage rated gloves. Welders wear welding masks.
Quartz countertops are just on one of many dust inhalation risk injuries. Even if these counters were nonexistent, there are hundreds of other masonry and other materials that present dust/fume related risk when they are cut/finished.
The smart way ahead is to accept that silicosis is a real safety issue, and simply require adequate respiratory protection for those working in high dust environments, whether on quartz countertops or whatever else.
Rx9
One more thing, this brings me back. When the big 2020 event kicked off, I was one of the few who had an ample supply of n95 and cartridge respirators on hand. The reason why is that regardless of whether or not they worked for that particular task, they do work for the particle and fume risks they are designed for, and I use them for those purposes. Having grown up with asthma, I’ve always figured my lungs could use all the help they could get, so I not only avoided cigarettes, but also made use of respirators when appropriate, and insisted on their use wherever I was working (with inhalation hazards). I remember when my buddy was cutting out grout lines in his living room tile job, and I came over to help him. I opened the door to a nasty cloud of dust with him coughing in the middle, and said something to the effect of “good morning, we are going to [home improvement store] and getting respirators right now, or I’m done here”.
As much as I understand the appeal of just working through something and toughing it out, you just can’t do that and get away with it. At this stage in history, a lot of medical care still consists of a doctor saying “That sucks for you, there’s nothing I can do to fix this, and BTW, it’ll be $600 for that pearl of wisdom”.
I’d rather just do whatever it takes to avoid that futile conversation.
Franco Calcagni
I have seen and heard of many instances where a worker is doing something wrong, and when this is highlighted, they give a generic response like “I have been doing it this way for 30 years, never had a problem”.
Like some mentioned, the proper protection can be a PITA and thus a deterrent to proper protection. Everyone, just about worldwide, just went through mandatory mask wearing because of COVID; a PITA but we did it.
Proper enforcement of PPE would go a long way.
Dan Matesic
Frances Perkins was the Secretary of Labor long ago. Her “Stop Silicosis” video is from 1938. A 3 min. version OSHA video is on youtube. Silicosis is not a novel problem. The manners in which to combat it are not unrealistic.
Bob
Why can we use robots to cut quartz?
Stuart
Do you know of any robots that perform kitchen installs?
Or, smaller customizers might not have the capital to invest in such. Manual labor is cheaper.
Leo B.
Many shops use CNCs to cut at least most of the countertop, but it’s the field fitting, like Stuart said, where you can get a lot of exposure. Shops can also have poor dust control for hand work, so outside of the main cutting is really where the exposure seems to come from.
AS
One of the significant problems is that “Quartz” countertops are over 90% silica compared to granite at 50% silica (varies) and some types of marble as low as 10% silica.
You can cut some types of marble your whole life without protection and never get silicosis, then switch to quartz and end up terminally ill in just a few years.
Silicosis IS accepted as a real safety issue. Adequate respiratory protection IS required for those working in high dust environments. Persistent failure by shops to invest in and enforce workplace safety practices when the operate on high risk materials means we need a bigger hammer to stop the injuries from continuing because the social cost is proving to be so high.
https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/OSHA3768.pdf
JustinGT
This article is six days old, so I don’t know if anyone will see this comment.
OSHA implemented strict silica-based work rules a few years ago. My previous employer performed a lot of work with siding materials so invested heavily in Makita’s line of tools that are specifically designed to function in ways to be compliant with those rules.
Some of those power tools create a system that includes a sealed, HEPA filtered vacuum with pre-filters and an on-board HEPA filter cleaning system and cutting tools designed to attach to the vacuum. The cutting tools have very little cutting area exposed to the environment while in use.
If needed, workers would also have access to respirators with P100 filters and fit testing.
I can understand small businesses’ aversion to expenses such as these. That former employer was a large company and could easily absorb the start up costs to be in compliance. However, the technology is there and the regulations are already there. No small business should want to take the risk of business ending fines should the rules be enforced that day.
Rather than ban a product that’s harmless in its finished state, perhaps CA should enforce the rules already on the books.
Randy S
The problem with “just enforce the existing rules” is that management and most lone workers see the safety guy as a hindrance at best and a joke at worst.
I see it all the time at the shop I’m at, and we have one of the best safety programs in town for our type of shop.
I can also recall back when I was a supervisor, I had this one kid who refused to wear eye protection with any power tool. Miter saw, overhead drilling, you name it. He even told me that he wouldn’t wear them no matter what I said or did. We ended up sending him home without pay for the day AND a letter in his file to get the message across. It’s stupid, but that’s the prevailing attitude among most tradesmen.
JustinGT
Unfortunately, you’re right about the typical attitude towards safety. I’ve worked for or with plenty of those people. I’ve been fortunate to work for two large companies with a positive safety culture in place. If it couldn’t get done safely, it didn’t get done.
I used to have similar attitudes when I was young and invincible. After a few near misses, injuries and permanent issues, but so much anymore.
I watched a friend and co worker get his eye taken out with a copper pipe. He would’ve been ok had he worn his safety glasses on his face rather than his shirt collar.
Another co worker slipped on a rotted cedar shake as I was driving the screws through his ridge anchor for his fall rope. He was in a hurry to get started and shouldn’t have been up there yet. He managed to catch himself on the gutter.
A guy at my current employer wore his wedding ring in a scissor lift. While he was getting out, it caught on something and de-gloved his finger.
Short term foolishness with potentially long term consequences.
The safety conscious play the long game.