Joe Duggan

Since 2024, we've been reporting on cases of silicosis in young workers cutting a stone known as quartz or engineered stone, which is a stone that's become very popular in makeovers for people who are doing their kitchens up.

So...

Yeah, and we don't yet know the scale of the problem in this country, but it's the most popular stone for people having kitchens and everyone's got a kitchen.

So we know of more than 50 cases so far, but it's likely to be significantly higher than that.

Somebody I know works in the industry and contacted me and said, you know, have you heard of this stuff, engineered stone quartz?

You know, he was refusing to work with it.

He said it's too dangerous.

I don't want to put my workers at risk.

They've just banned it in Australia.

What's the situation here?

Yeah.

I'd never heard of it.

I didn't know what it was.

I knew what silicosis was.

It's an occupational lung disease, which sort of historically has always been, you know, people are working in mining, construction industry.

um have developed silicosis usually after quite a number of years of exposure to dust from cutting stone what we found with the cases of silicosis in the guys who were cutting these kitchen workshops is they were starting to develop it very young and after not very long exposure off you know a couple two or three years in some cases yeah

So they were getting ill and dying younger than historically workers have done when they've contracted silicosis from cutting stone.

It's also known as quartz, and it's become the most popular stone that people have installed in their kitchens when they want a new worktop.

It's cheaper than granite and marble, but it looks attractive as well.

Is it a composite?