from Hacker News

Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis

by 04rob on 9/24/23, 3:49 PM with 455 comments

by charles_f on 9/24/23, 5:03 PM
Tangentially related, there's this copper mining museum in BC (1) in what used to be one of these corporate towns where you lived and died. They do a quick demo of the equipments they used back in the day, in a pre cut hole. Even with your hands on your hears it's painful, teeth chattering - and they don't even really hit the rock.
People working in there weren't wearing any sort of hearing protection and became deaf within months. And after introducing pressured air driven equipment, they were all dying in a few years from silicosis. Until someone added water spraying to precipitate the dust into mud (wherein their issue became to fiddle caked in mud all day long in the dark, which I guess is an improvement over certain death). Which happened years later.
Thinking about the kind of life they had terrorizes me. I don't get how, for the longest time, people were fine with that. I mean no judgement on the workers, they probably didn't have a choice - but the people sending them in probably saw them as kettle.
Makes you think about the sort of progress in worker protection that was made since then. But also this kind of story reveals how people are still ready to profiteer from such deadly practices, if given the opportunity.
1: https://www.britanniaminemuseum.ca/
by dmbche on 9/24/23, 4:22 PM
"Nearly half of the workers suffering silicosis in the UCLA and UCSF study said their workplaces were using water to control dust. Roughly a quarter said they always had respiratory protection. Fazio said studies have found that in many shops, dust is so thick in the air that respirators cannot filter out a sufficient amount.
Metzger argued that the kind of sophisticated and costly measures that would be needed to reliably protect workers cutting engineered stone are not economically plausible in an industry where immigrant workers typically labor in small shops and are often paid in cash. Engineered stone "is too dangerous to be used safely," he said. "If there’s any industrial product that should be banned, this is the product.""
All this thanks to synthetic stone - important note for countertops owners, if you want to make sure you don't support the product
by thadk on 9/24/23, 4:32 PM
According to this podcast, Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge, used his economist-oriented federal government department to delay and block legislated regulation related to protection for silicosis during the Obama administration. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/if-books-could-kill/id...
by jader201 on 9/24/23, 4:45 PM
Not long ago, we had our countertop replaced (from quartz to granite). They ended up having to make a cut in it while it was sitting in our kitchen. Our home was in a cloud of dust for several hours, and when the dust finally settled a day later, every surface imaginable was covered in dust.
I’m pretty sure none of them wore masks when doing this. I honestly didn’t think to wear a mask either (since they weren’t and never really even warned us how bad it would be), but fortunately we were behind closed doors most of the time the particles were in the air.
Fortunately it was a granite countertop and not quartz. But I still can’t imagine that stuff is good to breathe on a recurring basis, and it still amazes me that they were fairly casual about the whole thing.
My guess is the industry just isn’t educating workers about the risks.
by noobermin on 9/25/23, 6:22 PM
Just a comment, but pulmonary fibrosis is terrible. People don't know that often damage to your lungs cannot be reversed. I survived two major lung infections and over a year later still have issues climbing lots of stairs or steep hills that were easy before. I mean I dont have fibrosis (that would be an immediate death sentence) but it's crazy how scaring and damage in the lungs just happens and that part of your lung is just useless now. It's just with fibrosis, the scarring never ends and subsumes both your lungs and thus you die.
People have an attitude (somewhat helpful) that you can always get will yourself to recovery or "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and all that, but severe damage to your lungs really has no treatment. Essentially your body just adapts to the reduced function by being more efficient or by changes in behavior (like walking slower). That lung capacity is lost for good.
by saveferris on 9/25/23, 6:19 PM
And it's not like it hasnt been known for a long time how dangerous silica can be. I worked in a chemical manufacturing plant as an engineering intern in the 80s, at a plant that made marine coatings. One of the products contained silica as an ingredient. The precautions that went into the production of that product were crazy, workers entering the area had to wear what amounted to space suits with full respirators. I vividly recall putting these suits on any time we had to do any work in that production area.
by stephen_g on 9/25/23, 5:04 PM
We have this problem in Australia too. I am glad at least that people are starting to wake up to the silicosis risk though, because you can also release silica dust cutting or drilling through bricks, cutting or polishing concrete etc. and you often see tradies take almost no precautions...
by dml2135 on 9/24/23, 4:45 PM
Not surprised. Back in my artist days, the studio I rented was in a building with a countertop business on the first floor. The extent of their safety measures were blowing the dust out into the back alley. Most workers rarely, if ever wore masks, and the inside of the shop was absolutely covered in dust. The dust would make it up to me on the second floor, everything in my studio would accumulate a thin layer just a week or so after cleaning.
Wasn’t great but the rent was cheap, until it wasn’t
by Kirby64 on 9/24/23, 4:57 PM
This seems largely similar to worker protections for welding... the proper protection is essentially heavy shop ventilation and full respirators (which, good ones cost something like $1500).
I suspect the problem is that welding related disease/problems show up quite quickly in most cases, and welding tends to be a higher paid industry. More room for margin on PPE and workers have higher demands.
by lifeisstillgood on 9/24/23, 5:22 PM
This is why we have trades unions.
I just am astounded, horrified. The answer to abusive management is simply rebalance power. The answer to abusive markets is pay more (Edit: better supply chain ledgers)
Just horrified
re supply chains - the simple way to stop sales of any product is a shelf market like this: "The product X was manufactured by the small child who last month was mutilates by a factory accident. Nice picture. our product has the following verified supply chain. but it's more expensive. your choice of course"
by corndoge on 9/25/23, 6:19 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but does a respirator not solve this problem? The article and many comments here seem to blame people wanting cheap countertops as either part or all of the issue, but if it's safe to cut them with a respirator or wet saw, the focus should be on making companies give their workers respirators/wet saws and enforce their use.
by ike2792 on 9/25/23, 5:37 PM
I worked in a countertop factory around 25 years ago and every single tool/station used wet cutting. Why on earth would workers be doing this work without water?
by asdefghyk on 9/25/23, 5:32 PM
From Google "......Silicosis is the oldest known occupational lung disease. Ancient Greeks were familiar with lung disease in quarry workers (Hippocrates) and the fact that ..... " Amazing this issue has not been addressed - starting with education - maythis material needs to be banned ????
by nikolay on 9/25/23, 6:24 PM
I have a friend in this business and his workers always wear N95 masks and his machines are sprayed with water to greatly reduce the dust particles in the air.
If workers refuse to wear masks, then whose fault is this?! If employers do not provide the PPE necessary of this job, then they should be sued and put in jail! My friend was buying 3M N95 masks before COVID-19 at extremely low prices in small quantities - somewhere between $.50 and $.70 a piece. So, everybody can calculate the "savings" those cruel employers do - a lot less than $50/mo/employee!
There are so many Latino workers in Southern California who do not wear PPE for a variety of reasons. For example, all those leaf blowers not only breathe in gas for hours, but they also inhale dust and mold! And nobody seems to care about them! My city of Irvine for years was pretending they want to enforce the switch to electrical leaf blowers as based on numerous studies, 2-stroke engines pollute the air of California a lot more than all cars together, but have done nothing! If I don't run and close all my windows, my house gets filled with gas for literally minutes and then it's really hard to get rid of those toxic fumes! This madness should stop!
The same applies to many other workers! There's the law, but nobody seems to care to enforce it!
by pavlov on 9/25/23, 4:21 PM
For me, the essential summary of the comments was this one:
“All this thanks to synthetic stone - important note for countertops owners, if you want to make sure you don't support the product”
by jimbob45 on 9/24/23, 4:22 PM
Many went without masks. Some had water spurting from their machines, but others had nothing to tamp down the powder rising in the air.
Does OSHA not require masks in these cases?
by londons_explore on 9/24/23, 7:04 PM
I suspect that stone dust generally will be found to be similarly harmful to asbestos.
Asbestos is apparently worse because of the sharp edges of the particles, but if I put any angle grinder dust under the microscope I see plenty of sharp bits too.
I think the actually harmful thing is that the dust is 'fresh' rather than being the result of years of chemical weathering which tends to smooth off the sharpest pointiest bits at nanometer scale.
by SoftTalker on 9/25/23, 6:10 PM
Weird this is happening in California of all places, the most regulated state in the country when it comes to potentially hazardous materials and workplace and consumer safety?
by goalieca on 9/25/23, 5:05 PM
> Pale dust rose around them as they worked. Many went without masks. Some had water spurting from their machines, but others had nothing to tamp down the powder rising in the air.
Safety regulations need to be put in place with the cheapest being a good quality respirator.
by 1letterunixname on 9/25/23, 5:11 AM
A lot of tradespeople refuse or ignore PPE. It's mostly macho men, the kind who don't go to the doctor, and smoke and believe it won't cause them cancer. Another fact: scant few men who work outside wear sunscreen. There were multiple generations of these kind of people on my mom's side of the family, and they inevitably died prematurely of preventable conditions.
A modern example: I've seen gravestone engravers completely covered in stone dust while wearing only a thin handkerchief; no hearing, eye, or proper lung protection. Sure they should know the risks but you can't force people to not smoke tobacco or use proper PPE.
by WhatsTheBigIdea on 9/25/23, 5:32 PM
Some interesting things about silicosis are...
1) The ancient Greeks and Romans knew about the hazards of breathing dust, and knew that stone workers were particularly at risk.
2) The name Silicosis was coined in 1870 by Achille Visconti who was studying lung disease in hard-rock miners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis
3) Silicosis can be entirely avoided by cutting stone (and silicon bearing ceramic materials) with a "wet cut"... literally just add water!
So, this danger has been known to stone workers for 2 millennia, protection is cheap, effective and readily available, and yet people are still falling prey to it.
I have personally witnessed professional counter top installers working in obviously unsafe ways, who have actively & energetically refused face masks, water dust collection, and vacuum dust collection (which is far less effective).
This is an article about human frailty, not about some new threat.
It is an important point that human callousness towards the well being of others seems to be self emergent. Clearly the people at the top of the stone cutting industry in LA are not investing in training their new young workers in proper technique.
How can this be addressed? I don't know. It seems Adam Smith and Karl Marx have both failed to leave us useful guidance on the subject.
by mbostleman on 9/24/23, 9:14 PM
Having been involved in commercial construction in the late 90s, OSHA had a lot of regulation and focus on masons - especially cutting concrete block. It’s surprising that 25 years later that understanding of the problem didn’t translate to the other trades.
by qwerty_clicks on 9/24/23, 6:18 PM
We all live worse lives due to deregulation pressures.
by xyst on 9/24/23, 5:15 PM
yet another example of exploitation of people just trying to make a living. No regulations or minimal enforcement means companies/contractors do the job as cheaply as possible. Undercutting companies that actually care about the safety of their workers.
by francisofascii on 9/25/23, 5:57 PM
Looks to be the same disease as "black lung". (common with coal miners)
by kwhitefoot on 9/25/23, 8:14 PM
That's a major failure of government.
We have quartz composite worktops in Europe too. I'm pretty sure that people aren't getting silicosis from them here. You can buy them in IKEA https://www.ikea.com/no/no/p/kasker-spesialtilpasset-benkepl...
by jackvalentine on 9/24/23, 10:04 PM
Even if the factory is operated safely these countertops often require adjustment on-site to fit properly… typically done dry with an angle grinder or similar.
by iancmceachern on 9/25/23, 2:43 AM
They just made the wrong choice in architecting their process'. They had different priorities then.
Engineered stone is created, it's not like natural stone, we don't have to cut it. They also have the choice to cast it, net shape.
They just need to redo their whole schema, they need to reconfigure their process to customize the engineered stone before its solidified, not after.
by throw9away6 on 9/24/23, 10:02 PM
The people who installed my counters used no safety equipment. They used consumer grade power tools while spraying them down with water and took no safety precautions. I was actually worried about what would happen if they injured themselves and if my insurance would get sued. They were all Asian and did not speak English it seemed like a super shady operation.
by Ericson2314 on 9/25/23, 2:53 AM
In the US the two separate building codes, two separate construction industries. This feels like a symptom of that.
by unnouinceput on 9/24/23, 5:57 PM
The original article is:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-24/silicosi...
Yahoo news is something I avoid like the plague.
by scrps on 9/25/23, 1:02 PM
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...
by shrubble on 9/24/23, 5:14 PM
Wouldn't a wet-cut system where you flow water over the area the blade is hitting, pretty much cut dust in the air by 99% or more? Water is pretty cheap and available ...
by pfannkuchen on 9/25/23, 12:23 AM
Why isn’t countertop cutting automated? Seems relatively straightforward for a robot as far as physical tasks go.
by quacked on 9/25/23, 4:42 PM
One of the frustrating things about modernity as a westerner is that I don't feel the need for the standard of living that all of these incredible-but-dangerous advances in modern science and technology have granted us. I don't need faux-stone counters cut by Central Americans, I don't to eat as varied a diet as is available, I don't need to travel anywhere over 45 mph or internationally, I don't need A/C on 95% of summer days, I don't need all of the plastic packaging that stuff is delivered in (although I often need or want the stuff it delivers). I am completely ready to live in a slowed-down, less-commodified, lower-capital environment, so I save money and am quite comfortable, but what can I do about everyone else? I'm not going to move the needle in greater society with my own choices.
In the ideological camp with me are the "degrowthers", who seem to be more common in Europe than in the US, but they all seem to be pitching borderless, stateless surveillance communism that relies on the same ultra high-speed high-tech plastic-based international-shipping constructs we have now, except with "green" energy instead of regular energy.
by 1024core on 9/25/23, 6:31 PM
Isn't this exactly what OSHA was established for?
by jcampbell1 on 9/25/23, 5:18 PM
The push to switch to dry cutting was a “green” innovation. This is a California problem created by California thinking.
by Simulacra on 9/24/23, 5:17 PM
How does this compare to asbestos?
by mabbo on 9/24/23, 4:53 PM
What I find interesting when comparing the US the Canada on topics like these is that in Canada, there is self-interest in demanding workers be protected. Like beyond the fact that it's a good thing you do.
Because we have a public health care system, funded by taxes, having a large number of young men out of the work force (not paying taxes) and using the health care system effectively means my taxes, everyone's taxes, are higher.
There's incentives for our government to protect workers from risks that will cost a fortune to fix.
In America, there's only the "because it's the right thing to do" reason, which is never enough for anyone to actually do anything.
by Verdex on 9/25/23, 4:26 PM
Omon Ra [1] is probably the most important book I've ever read. The wikipedia page suggested to me that it would be a surreal alternate history comedy about the Russian space program. There was however no comedy ... or at least nothing that was comedic to me.
The point, at least as I interpreted it, was that society is very good at building callous machines that throw away human lives for no reason and then the same society turns and pats itself on the back for the incredible virtue it has in allowing those people to "heroically" destroy themselves.
These countertops might not even outlive the people they're killing at a young age. In the past 15 years, I've talked to people who have gone from needing granite counter tops, to quartz, to the next trendy fashion. If a countertop killed me, then I would hope that it would last a century, but the truth is that it might not last a decade simply due to being unfashionable. And somehow I doubt its replacement is going to be any safer to cut.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omon_Ra
by bjnewman85 on 9/25/23, 4:53 PM
the incurable disease in the title is greed in the hearts of others that values the lives of these people less than the shiny things they make for rich people
by omginternets on 9/25/23, 4:55 PM
Why did I read this as “cantaloupes” 5 times in a row? Am I alone?
by linsomniac on 9/24/23, 4:44 PM
~5 years ago I had a quartz countertop installed. For the final install, the workers were out in the front yard making some final cuts. My 10yo son comes out to see what's going on, looks at the giant cloud of dust, says "Silicosis ain't no joke" and goes back inside.
I've taught him well.
by victorbstan on 9/24/23, 4:25 PM
A lot of workers don’t wear protective gear. By choice. Nobody to blame but themselves.