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Workers who cut countertops are dying of silicosis
- shrubble 3y agoWouldn'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 ...
- jackvalentine 3y agoYes, and I’ve known plumbers who have to make cuts in stone countertops to install taps etc to create a ‘dam’ out of putty to flow water in to the cutting site while doing it. The solutions exist, the problem is making people invest in them and stick to it.
- dmbche 3y ago"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
- b112 3y agoApparently sandblasted jeans are another issue: https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/63/5/317/1451439 https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/63/5/317/1451439
- bagels 3y agoAny sandblasting process causes this. Other media might not cause silicosis, but may introduce other kinds of particles in to the air.
- pixl97 3y ago>dust is so thick in the air that respirators cannot filter out a sufficient amount This is not a technology problem, this is an 1880s "Safety devices are too expensive problem" along with paid under the table workers problem. All kinds of other industries manufacture 'dangerous' products with regulations that protect the workers. Housing and agriculture are both industries that do not and fight ever further for anti-regulations to protect the workers even less.
- willcipriano 3y ago[flagged]
- aaomidi 3y agoRemoving the availability of cheap labor by providing more worker rights, and less/no criminalization of undocumented immigrants alongside an h1b reform would do wonders for the general health of this society.
- dcow 3y agoNobody is against cheap workers paying taxes. They’re against undocumented workers getting paid under the table and unfairly competing with documented workers that have to pay taxes and thus are more expensive. Gotta solve the documentation problem one way or another.
- willcipriano 3y agoOnce illegal immigrants gain citizenship and essentially basic civil rights (being a criminal federally isn't really freedom no matter if your state is sort of cool about it or not) they will no longer be willing to work in these conditions. They don't report or sue now due to their status, people fear deportation and it's often used as a threat by business owners and housewives employing cleaners and nannies.
- 3y ago
- hackernewds 3y agoVote with your wallet is the most effective method. Look at plastic straws today. What kind of countertops should be avoided? Would have been nice if the article suggested some solutions as well
- smeej 3y agoPlastic straws are still ubiquitous everywhere they weren't legislated out of existence. What does that have to do with voting with your wallet?
- zolbrek 3y agoIf only. The EU declared exterminatus on them. I saw a few in the wild recently in Germany and it reminded me of happier times.
- nerdponx 3y agoI'd like to know as well. When my parents remodeled their kitchen they got some kind of simulated granite aggregate made of recycled material that I believe was fully heatproof and held up very well over the years. But did somebody get silicosis in the process?
- LeifCarrotson 3y agoThey might have, you have no way of knowing whether the factory in which they were made used PPE or not. If they were cheap, probably not, if they were expensive, maybe, or maybe the manufacturer was just pocketing more profit.
- rayiner 3y agoMost of these aren’t made in a “factory.” Because countertops are heavy and pretty much all custom sized and shaped, they’re being made in small scale local businesses.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
- rowanG077 3y agoThis is a problem with all rock cutting. With adequate safety measures there is no problem.
- boringg 3y agoWet cut, venting, wear a mask and regulate if the industry won't self-regulate which seems to be the issue.
- Kirby64 3y agoIt seems that the synthetic stone is not the cause, but highlighting the problem: poor enforcement of safety standards and inadequate PPE provided to workers. Just because there's more silica doesn't mean that it's suddenly unsafe whereas cutting granite is safe. Even drywall or cutting concrete you're supposed to wear PPE.
- Aeolun 3y ago> Even drywall or cutting concrete you're supposed to wear PPE Yeah, but it doesn’t kill you within a few years if you don’t, right?
- theGnuMe 3y agoIt is dose related although the silica never gets out of the lungs. Demolition, sanding drywall compound all is bad without PPE and Hepa filters.
- hadlock 3y agoIt never leaves your lungs though. In the last 20 years we went from "dust masks are for wimps" to "wow not wearing PPE is terrible". One small silver lining of covid is that even relatively oblivious home owners even wear PPE for small projects now. Smoking OR inhaling large amounts of dust might not kill you, but both are bound to make you miserable later in life. There is already a steep drop off in lung cancer deaths, peaking in the early 1990s. Right now we're down to about 1930s level despite having nearly triple the population. You can buy a cheap yet very comfortable 5000 or 7000 series respirator from 3M for about $20 and the "pink pancake" P100 filters are another $12. If you're a hobbyist those ought to last you a year, maybe even 5 depending on what you're cutting. I do metalwork as a hobby and I can definitely feel it in my lungs (and taste it) the next day if the garage door is shut and I forgot to wear the respirator.
- zolbrek 3y agoMetalworking apprentice here, I started wearing a respirator regularly after seeing the gunk cleaned out of my nasal passages by using a neti pot.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoA friend is in the countertop business in Florida. We just transitioned his shop to primarily rely on refurbed FANUC robotics performing the heavy lifting and cutting ops to prevent these health hazards (as he’s the one doing the cutting). Work areas are operated in lazy negative pressure with work atmosphere filtered prior to exhaust out of the building. Regulation is the only way to prevent labor from being treated as disposable by these businesses, regardless of the status of these workers.
- bagels 3y agoI wish it was more specific about the materials.
- mhb 3y agoThe materials are a second order effect. Undoubtedly breathing granite, soapstone or whatever dust isn't good for you either. Maybe it just takes longer to kill you.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bafe 3y agoIsn't soapstone closely related to asbestos? I'd expect it to produce the same type of powder that makes asbestos so dangerous (and on top of silicosis it can give you mesothelioma)
- mjh2539 3y agoSoapstone is primarily composed of talc. Talc deposits sometimes have asbestos minerals included in them. Pretty much any aerosolized mineral is going to wreak havoc on your lungs.
- bafe 3y agoTrue, but it seems asbestos because of the particular shape of the fiber is particularly nasty and more likely to cause mesothelioma
- bagels 3y agoSure, but the article focuses on "the booming popularity of countertops made of engineered stone", without specifying what that actually is. How can I avoid buying these products or reduce exposure to these more dangerous materials if I'm a worker? Is porcelain "engineered stone"? They should have ppe for any cutting, regardless, I agree.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoWe have these worktops in Europe too, without the health problems as far as I can tell. It seems that the US either lacks suitable health and safety legislation or fails to enforce it.
- jimbob45 3y agoMany 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?
- wcunning 3y agoDefinitely an OSHA requirement, but there's no guarantee that 1) management supports the necessary supplies, checks, reminders, actions, etc or 2) workers want to wear the respirators/masks in general. On top of that, inspectors may be instructed (depending on inspection management, training, etc) that the water based dust suppression is good enough. Even if they want to see masks, management and workers may only implement them during inspections. Adherence to rules is necessary for rules to do anything anywere, ever.
- WirelessGigabit 3y agoEven though there are whistle-blower protection laws, they aren't good enough. No-one should fear risking their job when they stand up for their own health. Management on the other hand should enforce masks as a means to avoid liability.
- Gibbon1 3y agoWhat should happen is if someone sees it they call 911 and the cops show up. Followed by the county permit inspector. And then the owner gets arrested and the job site shut down for 6-12 months. Seriously that's what happened at friends workplace when an electrician got fried working on a live 440 volt panel. Don't see why a counter top shop should be treated any different.
- Zigurd 3y agoA key insight into things like this is that many regulations are like speed limits: loosely enforced. Sometimes because it is too hard to inspect every shop handling dangerous materials. In cases like these you have to ban the dangerous material, or essentially kill the market for the products that use it. BTW, I'm not sure how solid granite, soapstone, marble, etc. would be any better. Maybe my 30 year old totally fake Corian is back in style. But for the microplastics from scrubbing it?
- victorbstan 3y agoA lot of workers don’t wear protective gear. By choice. Nobody to blame but themselves.
- killjoywashere 3y agoI have had things cut for me and I find myself begging the workers to wear ear pro, eye pro, air pro, and they invariably smile, nod, and work without it. Even if I point out the protective gear sitting near the work area. I too was young once. Now I wear the kit.
- barrkel 3y agoThis is both a collective action problem (people not using the right gear will be faster and cheaper than those with, meaning bad behavior outcompetes good) and an information asymmetry problem - workers are usually not fully aware of the problems they're creating for themselves.
- bluGill 3y agoAlso people don't think they care. In high school one kid told me 'I don't want anyone to wipe my butt when i'm old, so I'm going to commit suicide at 50, therefore my smoking isn't going to harm me'. He is now approaching 50, I wonder if he still thinks that, but I haven't seen him since.
- b112 3y agoThe company is to blame. It's law to wear protective gear in many legal jurisdictions, and that 100% means the company is liable, if it does not actively enforce, and create a "culture of safety".
- pixl97 3y agoExactly. In general companies don't like OSHA hanging around. They'd rather run fast and lose even if it costs a finger or two. Enforcement of the law is how get compliance.
- 3y ago
- thadk 3y agoAccording 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/id1651876897?i=1000613645578 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/if-books-could-kill/id...
- whimsicalism 3y agoJeez - Sunstein has such great work in legal scholarship, but I guess power corrupts? Even more surprising to me was Sunstein and his wife Samantha Power attending Henry Kissinger's birthday party after Power previously published a book basically pinning 150,000 deaths in Cambodia directly on him. They knew this guy is basically a war criminal and still went to celebrate his birthday.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- usrnm 3y agoThe US has no war criminals, because no court in the world would dare to prosecute Americans for war crimes, the ICC tried once, didn't end well for them. So relax, Kissinger is one of the good guys.
- elzbardico 3y agoOne strange thing the older among us are pretty sure to notice is how in average the tech industry worker moved from a quasi-hippie political point of view towards boot-licking default. In the old slashdot times, such a comment would probably have +5 insightful badge attached, here in HN in 2023, it is downvoted to hell.
- whimsicalism 3y agoe: oh i misunderstood what you were saying, keeping my original comment for posterity I think this is poe’s law in action :) I did not read the reply as earnest.
- linsomniac 3y ago~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.
- jader201 3y agoNot 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.
- mabbo 3y ago> My guess is the industry just isn’t educating workers about the risks. My guess is that the companies that did were undercut by the ones that didn't.
- gpderetta 3y ago> Fortunately it was a granite countertop and not quartz A relative of mine died of silicosis after having worked for years in the granite industry. Granite is probably as bad without adequate protection.
- jader201 3y agoI’m sure it’s not “good”, but from my limited understanding, it’s not equivalent to risks of quartz. This article [1] indicates quartz contains about 2x silica vs. granite. [1] https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2019/10/29/silicosis-countertop/ https://blogs.cdc.gov/niosh-science-blog/2019/10/29/silicosi...
- trobertson 3y ago> Fortunately it was a granite countertop and not quartz. Granites are primarily composed of feldspar and quartz, which are both primarily composed of silica. Silica is the thing that causes silicosis, and when that granite was cut it was clouds of silica dust that covered your home. You were no more safe in that granite dust than you would have been in quartz dust.
- dml2135 3y agoNot 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
- albert_e 3y ago> everything in my studio would accumulate a thin layer just a week or so after cleaning I wish I ONLY had to clean the surfaces once a week. In my country and city unfortunately -- even though I dont live near a major road or construction site -- dust is everywhere. Within 24 hours or less of wiping clean, you can see a visible layer of dust on any horizontal surface in home.
- mabbo 3y agoWhat 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.
- bushbaba 3y agoAmerica offers Medicare so we still bear the cost. Just only if they live long enough to receive the retirement benefits. Yeah one heck of a perverse incentive.
- cj 3y agoMedicare for the elderly, but we also have Medicaid for people in poverty (< $15k/yr income for a single person w/o a family) which covers most basic medical/dental/ vision needs and is taxpayer funded. Someone taken out of the workforce may qualify for that if they don’t already qualify for disability insurance or similar payments (although I’m not 100% clear if those are funded via private disability insurance or public programs)
- lotsofpulp 3y agoMedicaid is not at all comparable to Medicare. First, Medicare pays a lot more to healthcare providers than Medicaid. Medicare pays more for more medications than Medicaid, and has fewer prior authorization requirements for those medicines. Fewer providers will accept Medicaid, and people using Medicaid will receive less or worse healthcare than those in Medicare. Second, Medicaid is administered by each state, and there is a lot of variability on how easy the state makes it so people can actually get healthcare. Lots of states straight up refuse money simply to punish people of a certain socioeconomic class because it happens to win votes. Bottom line, Medicaid is so leaders can claim they are helping poor people get healthcare AND keep taxes low. Medicare is for actually delivering healthcare to people because that contingent makes up a huge proportion of votes. And yes, even Medicare is not delivering all healthcare, as it has multiple tiers to deliver differing amounts of healthcare to different socioeconomic classes.
- Kirby64 3y agoThis 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.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- charles_f 3y agoTangentially 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/ https://www.britanniaminemuseum.ca/
- jerzmacow 3y ago"it is what it is" plus having a hungry family to feed?
- charles_f 3y agoOh yeah absolutely, but being a shareholder in there? I mean it's always easy to judge people whose context you don't know, but I think you can draw a line and this is past it
- city41 3y agoWe can still draw those lines today, but mostly ignore them. Such as the nets around Foxconn factories, slave labor used to create chocolate, lithium mining, etc. Not nearly as dramatic as what those copper mine workers went through, but still quite bad.
- xyst 3y agoyet 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.
- Simulacra 3y agoHow does this compare to asbestos?
- lifeisstillgood 3y agoThis 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"
- unnouinceput 3y agoThe original article is: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-24/silicosis-countertop-workers-engineered-stone https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-24/silicosi... Yahoo news is something I avoid like the plague.
- qwerty_clicks 3y agoWe all live worse lives due to deregulation pressures.
- londons_explore 3y agoI 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.
- jaclaz 3y agoYes, they are essentially the same: https://medlineplus.gov/interstitiallungdiseases.html https://medlineplus.gov/interstitiallungdiseases.html
- stephen_g 3y agoI already commented above but no, they aren't - silicosos is similar to one of the several possible diseases asbestos can give you, asbestosis, but mesothelioma is the real horror outcome from asbestos exposure which I don't believe silica has any kind of similar connected disease.
- jaclaz 3y agoYes, maybe I expressed myself improperly, mesothelioma (often originated from asbestos) is slow (like 20 to 40 years from exposure): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesothelioma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesothelioma the workers in the article are young and are dying from the effects of "plainer" silicosis (which is similar to asbestosis).
- stephen_g 3y agoThe effects of stone dust are pretty well understood - silicosis is deadly and similarly harmful as asbestosis, and both raise the risk of lung cancer, but I don't believe there is anything like mesothelioma related to quartz dust which is the real horror of asbestos.
- mbostleman 3y agoHaving 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.
- throw9away6 3y agoThe 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.
- jackvalentine 3y agoEven 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.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoWhy does it need adjustment? In Norway you buy it from, amongst others, IKEA cut to exactly the dimensions you specify.
- jackvalentine 3y agoThings happen when renovating kitchens and measurement isn’t as precise as it should be.
- pfannkuchen 3y agoWhy isn’t countertop cutting automated? Seems relatively straightforward for a robot as far as physical tasks go.
- iancmceachern 3y agoThey 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.
- nemo44x 3y ago> They just need to redo their whole schema, they need to reconfigure their process to customize the engineered stone before its solidified, not after. That's not viable. They are cut only after the actual physical space has been built (carpentry mainly) because measurements have to be taken then since nothing is perfectly true/plumb/square. Today the turnaround is about a week for the material to be cut and then installed. Sending it off to the manufacturer to create to spec would not only add several weeks to the process but significant expense. Stone (both natural and engineered) can be cut safely. These shops just haven't been. Proper respirators, ventilation, and wetting will create a safe space to work in.
- iancmceachern 3y agoFixing this, either by the way I suggest, or the way you suggest (Proper respirators, ventilation, and wetting will create a safe space to work in.) both add cost. I think that's the problem, we're unwilling collectively as a society to pay the cost.
- Ericson2314 3y agoIn the US the two separate building codes, two separate construction industries. This feels like a symptom of that.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoA 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.
- 1-more 3y agoDuring the peak of covid, the NY Times made a video showing hospital workers loading dead bodies into the refrigerated trucks that served as expanded morgues for Brooklyn Hospital Center (by Fort Greene). Online skeptics pointed out that it must be crisis actors, for one of the workers was wearing his mask below his nose. Only thing I could think of was "have you never been to a jobsite?" I got called a pussy for wanting eye protection from the guy welding 15 feet from me.
- 1letterunixname 3y agoAlways look out for #1 because it is unlikely no one else will. If that means steel-toed shoes, a jock cup, thick gloves, shooting glasses, amplifying mickey mouse muffs, sunscreen, bottled water, and a P100 respirator, so be it. Safety regs are written in blood. And it only takes an instant or a culture of disregard to lead to later cancer, permanent disfigurement, or death. There are no old bold pilots or construction workers.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- scrps 3y agohttps://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00452-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...
- pavlov 3y agoFor 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”
- CharlesW 3y agoIt's not quite that simple, since people working with natural stone get silicosis too. Natural stone may be up to 50% silica.
- pixl97 3y agoYes, but not really. There are piles of industry around the world that deal with silica and don't have workers dying left and right. There are also piles of industries that do have workers dying left and right. The difference is not in the danger of the materials. The difference is supplying safety equipment and having a culture that demands the use of it. Regulations work.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago> Regulations work. When enforced.
- dang 3y ago(This was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37646198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37646198 but I've moved it because we merged the threads.)
- Verdex 3y agoOmon 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omon_Ra
- mike_ivanov 3y agoOf my favourite books. Thank you for the reminder to read it again :-) To those who didn't read it - it is a rather short novel, uncannily funny, scary, and most of all - revealing of how human societies actually work. This is one of the earlier Pelevin's works, so the style is still illustrious. Some jokes might not be immediately transparent as they are contextualized in the late USSR. Correction: it is scary in the cthonic/transcendent sense, not that it is spooky (it's not at all).
- xwdv 3y agoI see the same thing happen even in software. A developer here died 2 years ago, now 2 years later his contributions to the code base have finally been completely erased and replaced.
- k0k0 3y agoHis code contributions led to his demise? If not, I think you missed the point.
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- quacked 3y agoOne 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.
- CalRobert 3y agoI want to trade all the fancy shit I don't need for a ten hour work week and more time to do what I want, but annoyingly we've made artificial scarcities of essentials like housing, and codified forty hour weeks as the norm, making this hard. You're right that it's more common in Europe. When I go back to the US life feels so insanely gluttonous. Driving a studio apartment three miles to get a coffee is lunacy
- WalterBright 3y ago> Driving a studio apartment three miles to get a coffee is lunacy It sure is. I have a cheap drip coffee maker that I drink from all day, at a cost of a few cents a cup. Dirt cheap.
- mfitton 3y agoA few cents a cup?! Where do you buy your coffee? I buy coffee at about 12 bucks a pound. A pound makes about ten carafes of 4 cups (tbh, I use the term cup loosely, because a mug for me is more like 1.5 to 2 actual measuring cups) each. I get to more like 30 to 40 cents a cup. It seems like there might be potential for major cost savings.
- bjnewman85 3y agothe 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
- CoastalCoder 3y agoThere's a quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn that I find insightful: "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. ..."
- marcinzm 3y agoUnless you consider 30-40% of the US to be rich this isn't about the rich. Although it is nice how you foist the blame onto the rich instead of all of society.
- tempsy 3y agoquartz countertops are popular because they are cheaper than other types of countertops while looking expensive. this is like the Shein of counters. wealthy people probably use natural stone.
- Kirby64 3y agoQuartz countertops are more expensive than natural granite. They're only cheaper than something like Marble. Quartz is also strictly a better material: it's not as porous as granite, much much harder than marble (marble can be scratched so easily), and can be made into almost any color or pattern. Super rich folks may prefer natural stone, but not because it's a better material... it may be preferred because it's a worse material in many cases. The cost and fragility is part of the allure by itself.
- tempsy 3y agoit's more stain resistant but it's an unnatural engineered material.
- omginternets 3y agoWhy did I read this as “cantaloupes” 5 times in a row? Am I alone?
- sgt 3y agoI think you're alone. That said, cantaloupes are delicious. Go to the store and get a few, cut the cantaloupes and live to see another day.
- omginternets 3y agoFor real. Thank god!
- stephen_g 3y agoWe 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...
- jcampbell1 3y agoThe only precaution required is to use wet cutting and grinding. A wet process works better in every way except it uses more water. There is tons of decisions about factory equipment where there is a trade off between safety and the environment. Factory managers often joke about how various scrubbing equipment has OSHA on one side, and the EPA on the other. It is critical that the culture prioritizes safety above all else.
- goalieca 3y ago> 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.
- nickff 3y agoMany workers resist using safety equipment, even when it is provided to them, and they are shown how to use it. This is common for fall protection too. Safety regulations requiring provision of equipment may not get the job done. For all we know, safety equipment was available.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoEmployers must provide PPE. Workers must wear it or be let go. This is not hard.
- alex_lav 3y ago> Employers must provide PPE. Firing skilled laborers harms both the employer and the employee. > Workers must wear it or be let go. Firing skilled laborers harms both the employer and the employee. > This is not hard. It seems very hard.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoRegulators and liability lawsuits it is then I suppose. Those will be harmful to businesses and workers as well, but powered by media reporting and the public sphere.
- alex_lav 3y agoWhere they'll continue to come up with half measures and platitudes, yes. Because it's a very hard problem to solve and enforce. Glad we agree!
- jcampbell1 3y agoThe push to switch to dry cutting was a “green” innovation. This is a California problem created by California thinking.
- CBLT 3y agoCould you link me a source for this? I can't find one when I search.
- WhatsTheBigIdea 3y agoSome 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 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.
- abakker 3y agoWearing a full face respirator with p99 or other equivalent cartridges and using an Air Quality monitor to evaluate safe working conditions really help. PPI is VERY important, and so many people ignore it. Edit: changed wording to agree with you.
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y agoDo you mean PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) instead of PPI? I'm pretty sure proton pump inhibitors aren't relevant here, and they're the most health-related expansion of the acronym I could find.
- abakker 3y agoSorry, yes, PPE was what I meant. Fat fingered that one entirely. I doubt Omeprazole can do much for silicosis. /s
- asdefghyk 3y agoFrom 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 ????
- ike2792 3y agoI 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?
- orangepurple 3y agoYou can always find someone willing to do it cheaper, though to their credit they seem to use water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhhlcOix4TQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhhlcOix4TQ More fun stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I0IAwOIwXo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I0IAwOIwXo
- francisofascii 3y agoLooks to be the same disease as "black lung". (common with coal miners)
- haldujai 3y agoThey are both types of fibrotic pneumoconiosis (inhalational lung diseases) which also includes other entities such as asbestosis, berylliosis and talcosis. Not the same disease per se as there are slight differences but coal workers pneumoconiosis and silicosis are very similar given that they have a very similar inhalational dust profile.
- SoftTalker 3y agoWeird 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?
- smeyer 3y agoDo the same characteristics that make it the most regulated state also make it the state most likely to notice these hazards before other states do? If so, it wouldn't be very weird.
- mcguire 3y agoMy initial thought was, "Why wouldn't this be showing up everywhere?" Then, I thought "Oh, yeah." Poking around on the CDC site, it seems like the most recent data they have up is from 2014.
- femiagbabiaka 3y agoWell sure. There is no regulation with 100% compliance, and some regulation that inspires non-compliance. Safety regulations in the trades are taken as a joke in general. An example I heard back in the day: How many OSHA inspectors does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one, but it takes him three days to do it.
- loandbehold 3y agoThe problem is mostly with unlicensed contractors, usually undocumented immigrants. It's very easy to start countertop installation business. Buy some tools, list yourself at thumbtack and you are ready to go. You can always find work by underbidding guys with license. These guys often don't even have bank accounts and work for cash.
- corndoge 3y agoCorrect 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.
- loa_in_ 3y agoBut who is going to make the dangers known to potential and currently employed workers? Companies can sieve through people until they find someone desperate enough or oblivious to the danger and they could not even be aware they're throwing their lives away. And the respirators are going to be in a locker that you have to sign off on each time you want to use them and to do that you have to ask your superior who would try to put you down verbally. I witnessed this model myself while working intermittently at a refuse processing plant that services a pretty big city. The work entailed manually sorting through garbage on a conveyor belt and cutting open any sealed trash bags, taking any plastic, metal, paper and rot out of it manually and into the chutes.
- jcampbell1 3y agoAccording to a California advisory, respirators should only be used as a last resort. https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/dosh_publications/Engineered-stone-counters.pdf https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/dosh_publications/Engineered-sto... In New Jersey which also has lots of stone cutting, doesn’t allow dry cutting and has entirely different advice. https://www.nj.gov/health/workplacehealthandsafety/documents/occupational-health-surveillance/dry_cutting.pdf https://www.nj.gov/health/workplacehealthandsafety/documents...
- cryptonector 3y agoThere's not as much difference as you say. The NJ page says > New Jersey law (N.J.S.A. 34:5-182) requires that employers provide workers with full-face air-purifying respirators when engineering controls cannot be used. Use of respirators should be part of a complete respiratory protection program. While the CA page says Respirators should only be used: • As a last resort for protection when local exhaust ventilation or water controls are not feasible or do not adequately control employee airborne exposures. • Where exposures exceed the permissible exposure limit (50 μg/m3, 8-hour TWA) while installing or implementing feasible engineering and work practice controls. • When the employee is in a regulated area. I.e., both say that other measures must be applied first.
- saveferris 3y agoAnd 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.
- noobermin 3y agoJust 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.
- nikolay 3y agoI 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!
- kwhitefoot 3y ago> If workers refuse to wear masks, then whose fault is this?! It doesn't matter whose fault it is; it remains the employers responsibility to ensure that it does not happen, if necessary by dismissing the worker concerned.
- nikolay 3y agoJust saw today a worker in a cloud of soil dust with a machine that, I guess, breaks the hardened soil - right next to a busy road. Anyway, next article would be about these workers getting Candida auris. Anyway, do you expect their employer to watch them all the time when they work? If they have passed instruction and cannot be supervised all the time, then it's employees fault.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoOf course the employee is at fault but the employer also has a responsibility to ensure that such employees do not repeat such behaviour. I expect employers to be aware of how well their employees do the job and to take appropriate action when the behaviour fails to meet the relevant standards.
- 1024core 3y agoIsn't this exactly what OSHA was established for?
- kwhitefoot 3y agoThat'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-benkeplate-hvit-marmormonstret-kvarts-10428394/ https://www.ikea.com/no/no/p/kasker-spesialtilpasset-benkepl...