Damning silicosis report calls for world-first ban on deadly engineered stone —will governments listen?
Silicosis is a work-related disease that is entirely preventable. It is on the rise globally due in part to weak regulators and companies putting profit before the safety of workers.
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Then a possible improvement is that staff facilities need to be less basic. Changing room for removing overalls to keep dust out. Then that creates a clean area, with air filtration, for breaks away from the dust for removing PPE
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-24/silicosis-countertop-workers-engineered-stone
Yip this would be ideal ,the guys over here have had a campaign on the go for over 25 years for the simple reason they were dropping like flies ,during this period they have petitioned government relentlessly for improvement in conditions as well as public awareness which would highlight all of the dangers associated with dust.
As a result the present government no longer records dusty deaths and also removed dusty diseases from the reportable list 'To cut back on red tape ’ back in 2013 .
The guesstimated number of deaths by dust in this country when all the diseases associated with occupational exposure to respirable crystalline silica are are combined can only be described as staggering !
The last All Party Government Hearing in January of this year agreed with the findings and found the present situation not only shocking but completely unacceptable ,so they made many recommendations …Guess what’s changed ?
Last January’s All Party UK government report can be found further down this page .
Sorry I don’t see the UK gov report, could you link it?
Thanks for all the info btw, I know I’m focusing on the points where we disagree but the info is really interesting and informative
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These arguments read like there is no problem with abestos as long as the right precautions are made. It’s not like these countertops are en essential right of the people, especially given the risk.
These solutions would require strong regulations which, in the end, would only lead to the protection of profits for the large companies that sell them at the expense of taxpayer money. If we want to save taxpayer money and lives, prohibiting the use of these materials given their risk will be much more cost effective for society.
Yes, to protect workers you need strong regulations that are enforced. Ability to enforce rule of law is the starting point for a functioning state. Your argument is that this is not possible therefore we should just ban things. If the regulations make it so cost-prohibitive to use this stone, then it is functionally banned and we let the free market do R&D until they figure out a cost effective way within the regulations and worker protection laws, to cut the stone.
Banning things is a knee-jerk reaction that is unlikely to succeed because then you get the response “we can’t just ban everything”. Europian nations manage this strong regulation perfectly fine.
Of course everything shouldn’t be banned but everything does not lead to incurable diseases either. Working with things this dangerous and which provides no actual benefit for society is not worth regulating, consider who would pay for it.
Edit: It should also be noted that current evidence does not point towards there being a safe level of exposure to this dust. Any regulation must therefore be incredibly strict. Even if we disregard taxes, most of the economic pressure due to these regulations would befall the small businesses that cut these countertops. The large manufacturers of these materials would still be able to rake in profits while the little man pays for all the negatives.