You’ve got in all probability seen fabricated stone counter tops on an HGTV transforming present—and also you would possibly even have them in your individual residence.
The sturdy, reasonably priced, and extremely customizable product debuted in Italy within the Seventies and continues to develop in reputation. Between 2010 and 2018, U.S. imports of engineered stone slabs elevated by 800%. One report predicted that world demand will enhance 5.4% every year, to succeed in 97 million sq. meters by 2028.
Typically known as manufactured stone or quartz (which is, confusingly, additionally the identify of certainly one of its essential elements), to the untrained eye, the fabric appears to be like no totally different from pure stone. One among its largest benefits is that it may be made to resemble marble, granite, or practically some other stone.
Beneath the fabric’s acquainted clean floor, nevertheless, lie security dangers for engineered stone staff.
Analysis carried out by a group of Georgia Tech scientists demonstrates that everybody in a fabrication store is in danger, not simply the employees chopping and fashioning the fabric.
The paper seems within the journal Annals of Work Exposures and Well being.
The group included members of the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s Security, Well being, and Environmental Companies (SHES) program: Jenny Houlroyd, Hilarie Warren, Brandon J. Philpot, and Sean Castillo, who labored with Jhy-Appeal Soo of Georgia Southern College.
The examine divided engineered stone staff into 4 threat teams and charted their relative publicity to the fabric’s chief hazard: respirable crystalline silica.
A ‘poisonous product’
Engineered stone differs notably from its pure counterpart, each in composition and in peril to employee well being.
A stone slab lower from the bottom, reminiscent of granite or marble, includes a number of totally different minerals and usually has a focus of 40% or much less of mineral crystalline silica—normally quartz, which is probably the most ample type of crystalline silica.
Engineered stone, nevertheless, can include greater than 90% silica. Slabs are produced when silica is crushed, mixed with artificial resins, and compressed utilizing warmth or stress. Throughout fabrication, these slabs are lower and formed by powered hand instruments. The ensuing mud comprises respirable crystalline silica—tiny particles that—as soon as inhaled—do not depart the lungs.
Whereas crystalline silica is launched from each pure and engineered slabs throughout fabrication, the engineered slabs’ considerably greater share of silica poses a a lot larger threat to human well being. A rising physique of analysis signifies that respiration engineered stone mud results in lung irritation and might trigger acute silicosis, an untreatable lung illness.
“I might classify engineered stone as a very poisonous product,” stated Houlroyd, supervisor of occupational well being companies at SHES. “When you could have one thing that is high-risk, it’s a must to put together for techniques to fail and have backup measures.”
Dedicated to security
Over six years, the SHES analysis group collected air-sampling information, making 17 visits to 11 Georgia stone fabrication retailers. The retailers had all requested air-sampling companies supplied by SHES.
“The businesses agree that by working with us, they decide to correcting the hazards and decreasing exposures, as a lot as is possible,” Houlroyd famous.
As a result of most kitchen and loo countertop fabrication retailers are small employers, staff usually full a wide range of duties, leading to a spread of publicity elements.
The analysis group advisable that every one manufactured stone fabrication staff put on respirators, reminiscent of an N95 masks. For workers who’re probably the most uncovered, they advisable a respirator with a powered air-purifying factor or provided air.
However private protecting tools (PPE) alone doesn’t guarantee protected circumstances.
“Many of the staff on this trade are counting on respirators as their main supply of safety, and so they want much more to guard them,” defined Houlroyd. “PPE is the final line of protection, and security must be addressed from all angles.”
A part of that multifaceted technique contains repeated monitoring of air high quality and tools. It is also essential for employers to ensure that publicity dangers are understood by all staff—not simply workers, but in addition contract and day laborers, in addition to these working for money.
Greater than only a job
As members of SHES, the Georgia Tech analysis group members are at the beginning well being and security consultants, with experience spanning industrial hygiene, environmental compliance, and Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA) rules.
For Houlroyd, employee security isn’t just an expert calling; it is also a private mission.
“My dad bought sick with mind most cancers from publicity to contaminants on the job, and he died 4 years in the past,” she stated. “Although he did not work within the manufactured stone trade, his story is consultant of many individuals who go to work every day to feed their household, should not conscious of office hazards, after which discover themselves sick.”
The general public can play an element in employee security, too.
“Shoppers have a alternative and might educate themselves about what sort of countertop supplies they select to have put in—like how we take a look at meals labels for dietary data,” stated Warren, who oversees the OSHA Coaching Institute Schooling Middle at Georgia Tech.
“We should always pay attention to the danger to staff, in addition to how the set up course of in our properties ought to be correctly managed to forestall mud contamination,” she added.
A zero-risk answer
In 2024, Australia eradicated the dangers related to engineered stone fabrication. Regardless of having enacted stronger rules in 2019, the nation continues to see an increase in silicosis instances ensuing from publicity to respirable crystalline silica.
Australia’s answer? Enacting a ban on the import and fabrication of the fabric till its protected manufacture may be demonstrated.
Of their report, the Georgia Tech group recommends that the U.S. do the identical. As Houlroyd put it, “I might like to see our nation discover a safer substitution and take this harmful product off the market.”
Extra data:
Jhy-Appeal Soo et al, Respirable mud and respirable crystalline silica exposures amongst staff at stone countertop fabrication retailers in Georgia from 2017 via 2023, Annals of Work Exposures and Well being (2025). DOI: 10.1093/annweh/wxaf014
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Scientists pinpoint hazards for engineered stone fabrication store staff (2025, July 28)
retrieved 28 July 2025
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