Benchtop boss stands by product despite fears
Strict safety measures could ‘adequately mitigate’ illness risk from silica, says Cosentino
New Zealand authorities should shutter engineered stone workshops over safety breaches that risk tradies developing incurable lung disease silicosis, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of the kitchen benchtop material says.
Itay Shimony is the vice-president for Oceania for Cosentino, a Spanishheadquartered manufacturer with an annual turnover of more than $3 billion and operating in over 100 countries.
That includes New Zealand, where its subsidiary operates from East Ta¯maki, Auckland, and is soon to expand into Christchurch.
He recently visited Auckland from his base in Melbourne, amid growing calls from health groups for New Zealand to follow Australia’s lead and outright ban engineered stone products.
In an interview with the Weekend Herald, Shimony defended his company’s own safety record, which has faced scrutiny after legal action from stonemasons who developed silicosis, and argued against a ban here.
Australia will become the first country in the world to ban the popular benchtop material, to protect stonemasons from exposure to respirable crystalline silica (silica dust).
Dust from engineered stone is considered more dangerous because the manmade products have traditionally contained up to 95 per cent silica, compared to 2 to 50 per cent in natural stone.
Repeated, occupational inhalation of even very small amounts of dust has been linked to the lung disease silicosis and other serious conditions, including cancer and heart disease.
Australia announced the world-first ban in December, after a number of tradies died horrible, early deaths. Others — including in New Zealand — are debilitated by symptoms that include shortness of breath.
Fabricators here are transitioning to new products that contain less than 30 per cent silica. They argue this step will keep workers safe, when combined with properly enforced safety measures such as ventilation systems, respirator use and only fabricating stone when it is wet, to suppress dust.
There is no danger to homeowners once the material is installed.
A total ban is supported by health groups, including the College of Physicians and the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation, who point to the conclusion from the government agency Safe Work Australia that there is no known safe threshold for crystalline silica content.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden will receive advice on regulating engineered stone “over the next couple of days”, her spokeswoman said.
Why Australia opted for a total ban
Shimony said the incoming ban in Australia had caused a chaotic influx of cheap benchtop material with 0 per cent silica, made with ingredients including recycled glass (instead of quartz), resin and pigments. These products will skirt the ban, he said.
“Australia will be the first and only market in the world to introduce this product on a volume level . . . there is zero knowledge about the toxicity of this product. Zero research.”
Cosentino will apply through an exemption regime in Australia (which is yet to be finalised) in the hope it will be allowed to keep supplying its growing range of engineered stone with less than 10 per cent silica.
Shimony said the firm had pioneered lower-silica products and porcelain and natural stone-based alternatives, well before the threat of regulation and after it realised educating workers was not enough.
It will present what he said was growing evidence from countries like Israel and research that showed low-silica engineered stone could adequately mitigate the risk from dust, when combined with strict safety measures with proper oversight from authorities.
“We are working with different universities and we are gathering all the science and information, in order to show that the work with low-silica products is as safe as natural stone, zero silica products, concrete, any of these products.
“There is clear information about the size of the particles and exposure, and it shows that the move from high silica product to low silica product mitigates the risk of silicosis.”
That isn’t the position of health groups, including the College of Physicians or Safe Work Australia, the government body tasked with improving work health and safety. It says “there is no scientific evidence to support a ‘safe’ threshold of crystalline silica in engineered stone. Further, the risks posed by materials used in place of crystalline silica in lower silica engineered stone are largely unknown.”
The agency also reasoned that, “permitting work with lower silica engineered stone may create an incorrect perception that these products are ‘safe’ when there is no evidence to support this.”
Dr Alexandra Muthu, the College of Physicians spokeswoman and the cochair of a “national dust diseases taskforce” that advises the NZ Government, said if a total ban isn’t introduced here, extremely strict conditions, monitoring and certification must be introduced.
Current safety measures like wetcutting and high quality respirators aren’t enough, she said.
“Even with safety measures in space and in place, such as water suppression, there can be a big spike in the airborne silica dust.”
WorkSafe approach to safety insufficient: Cosentino
In New Zealand, WorkSafe investigations have found widespread safety failures at workshops where imported slabs of stone are cut, polished and shaped, and an ongoing Weekend Herald investigation has found gaps in oversight of the industry.
Currently, if WorkSafe finds problems at a fabricator and issues an improvement notice, that site is very rarely shut down while the needed changes are made. That should change, Shimony said.
“We believe that when an infringement is being found with the stonemason, there needs to be an immediate 90 days of shutdown.”
He said while major engineered stone fabricators here talked about moving to lower-silica products, the reality was most stone being sold was still high silica.
“I’m more worried about the fact that most of the products coming [into] New Zealand are not regulated . . . everyone is becoming an importer — every stonemason all of a sudden goes to China and brings in a container.
“There are so many uncontrolled products. One way to help to solve the problem is to regulate imports . . . there is a responsibility to show enough data about the products [such as] toxicity reports.”
Cosentino under scrutiny after ruling
In February 2023, Reuters reported that Cosentino owner Francisco Martinez accepted a six-month suspended prison sentence in a plea bargain over five counts of serious injury due to gross negligence.
The company said the deal settled a 15-year legal dispute relating to five stonemasons working at a third-party fabricator, and it was liable “only for providing insufficient technical information” about its Silestone product.
“The court found that the fabricator knew for years the risks associated with handling silica-based materials and did not implement adequate safety measures,” Cosentino said in a statement.
“The court therefore found the fabricator — not Cosentino — liable for failing to protect the safety of its workers.”
Shimony said in other legal cases the company had been exonerated. He could not say how many legal cases it
I’m more worried about the fact that most of the products coming [into] New Zealand are not regulated . . . everyone is becoming an importer — every stonemason all of a sudden goes to China and brings in a container.
faces, and didn’t provide this information after the interview.
Cosentino made headlines in Australia last October after its benchtops, including some engineered stone, were promoted on The Block renovation TV show.
Zach Smith, national secretary for the major construction worker union CFMEU, told news.com.au: “People should listen to health experts who say there is no safe level of exposure to any engineered stone product, not fake tradies promoting foreign-owned merchants of death.”
Shimony said the union could say what it wanted, but that Cosentino stood by the safety of its products and its communication of the needed safety protocols.
Itay Shimony, Cosentino’s vice-president for Oceania, says New Zealand needs tougher responses to infringements by fabricators.