Bench top ban not planned
Worksafe is clamping down on safety standards at businesses making engineered stone bench tops, but there are no plans to ban the popular product.
Engineered stone made from crushed quartz and resin accounts for up to half the New Zealand kitchen and bathroom bench top market, but the fine dust produced during cutting, sanding and polishing contains high levels of silica which causes accelerated silicosis, an incurable and fast developing lung disease.
Out of 113 engineered stone fabricators identified byworksafe, 75 have received enforcement notices over the past six months for safety breaches such as failing to control dust exposure, providing poor respiratory equipment and inadequately monitoring the health of workers.
An Australian Dust Diseases Task Force has suggested a ban on artificial stone may be necessary if proposals to tackle accelerated silicosis fail, but its New Zealand counterpart has yet to go that far.
Worksafe says there are about 450 potentially exposed workers out there, and so far ACC has received 85 claims for accelerated silicosis, most of them lodged in the past six months.
The youngest claimant was 19 and the oldest 74, and the vast majority were men. To date fewer than four claims had been accepted, 31 were under investigation and 45 had been withdrawn or declined.
The NZ Dust Diseases Task Force was set up to advise Worksafe, the Ministry of Health and ACC on a ‘‘clinical pathway’’ for at-risk workers, and Worksafe acting general manager health and technical services Api Poutasi said it has not recommended halting engineered stone imports.
He said safety standards appeared to be improving with just three prohibition notices ordering an immediate stop to unsafe activities issued during recent business inspections, compared with 21 in 2019. Nine fabricators visited had since exited the industry.
The New Zealand Engineered
Stone Advisory Group represents most major importers and distributors of engineered stone, and chairman Mike Arthur said they did not believe a ban was necessary because the product could be safely fabricated using the correct processes and equipment.
The advisory group and health and safety consultancy Impac Services received $300,000 from ACC to set up a voluntary accreditation programme encouraging safe work practices.