
I renovated my kitchen two years in the past, and now I am unable to assist however surprise: Is somebody sick or dying due to my design decisions?
Among the many choices I needed to make was which materials would change the cracked and stained yellow tile countertop that was put in within the Nineteen Fifties. I admired the look of wooden, however in the end selected a glittery quartz.
I’m not the one one who has made this alternative for a kitchen or bathtub redo. Lately, quartz, or engineered stone, has develop into the most well-liked materials for slick-looking counter tops, and the multibillion-dollar business is simply anticipated to develop. Quartz is not low-cost, however its enticing look (the choices for coloration and sample are seemingly limitless) and sturdiness make it value the additional price. It is almost unimaginable to burn or stain, which is an issue with wooden irrespective of how effectively you keep it.
These are issues I mentioned with the specialists on the tile and countertop suppliers. At no time did we speak in regards to the hidden prices of the choice, particularly that the folks—primarily younger Latinos—who lower engineered stone counter tops are getting sick and dying from silicosis, a illness I had by no means even heard of.
Or that office well being officers have identified for years in regards to the risks related to this line of labor and rampant noncompliance with security measures at work websites, however that it’s largely unknown to customers and even employees themselves. Or that dozens of individuals within the San Fernando Valley, the place the engineered stone business is concentrated, are at the moment sick with this incurable respiratory illness, which is attributable to respiratory within the silica mud launched when quartz is lower and has had an area fatality charge as excessive as 20%. Or that not less than 10 employees have died from silicosis between 2019 and 2022, and plenty of others are severely disabled.
I solely realized this stuff not too long ago, like many different Instances readers, from the story by Emily Alpert Reyes and Cindy Carcamo that put a highlight on this situation and the business—and sparked a dialogue about what will be performed to maintain employees secure.
Meeting member Luz Rivas, D-North Hollywood, wrote on X that she had already begun engaged on laws to be launched subsequent session. She stated later that the story helped rally consideration and help by labor advocates.
This epidemic of silicosis, as well being specialists have put it, has been on the radar of state and county well being officers for some months after issues had been raised by physicians at Olive View-UCLA Medical Middle who had been seeing an uptick in circumstances. The state is engaged on emergency laws for many who lower engineered stone, though regulators acknowledge that it might not be doable to make this job utterly secure for employees.
CAL/OSHA officers wrote in a Might report that “engineered stone could also be so hazardous that even correctly designed engineering controls and work practices could also be unable to stop RCS [respirable crystalline silica] exposures and silicosis among the many employees who lower, form and polish it.”
Moreover, most of the employees who’re affected by silicosis reported that they wore respirators and their workplaces integrated security strategies, comparable to utilizing water to maintain mud down.
If there isn’t a option to maintain quartz cutters secure, ought to engineered stone fabrication be banned? Maybe. That is among the choices that Los Angeles County well being officers will discover in a report requested by Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Holly Mitchell. Rivas stated it’s an choice that she is as effectively.
In some ways, the engineered stone state of affairs resembles the difficulty of chrome plating, one other business concentrated in Southern California that’s all about aesthetics (suppose spiffed-up vehicles with shiny chrome grills and rims ) however comes with an especially poisonous byproduct.
In that case, the damaging substance is carcinogenic hexavalent chromium that metal-finishing operations launch into the air at ranges which can be extraordinarily unsafe for the neighboring communities. State air regulators this yr lastly authorized guidelines that may require the business to transition to safer compounds starting in 2024.
It is good that lawmakers and regulators have taken discover of this horrible state of affairs, however it does nonetheless really feel like there’s an necessary aspect lacking—client schooling. If I had identified that selecting quartz put employees’ lives in danger, I might have picked one other countertop that does not include a aspect of guilt.
There may be actually no excuse to permit harmful working circumstances for a product that’s used for purely aesthetic causes when there are safer—and equally enticing—choices.
2023 Los Angeles Instances. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company, LLC.
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The hidden prices of engineered stone counter tops (2023, October 10)
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