The danger is to the workers who fabricate the counters. Dust from cutting, grinding, etc the counters causes silicosis, an irreversible and potentially fatal lung condition.

I remember reading about this a couple years ago. Young men were showing up at doctors with destroyed lungs, and they figured out that the men all worked in the countertop industry.

Naturally they weren’t provided with adequate respiratory protection, or with working conditions that allowed them to use it, or told why they should use it. Most of them were Hispanic (the article was from Southern California) and often immigrants. The homeowners got nice kitchens, the bosses got profits, these guys got early disability, poverty, and a gasping death.

https://www.builderonline.com/products/kitchen/the-problem-with-quartz-rising-health-concerns-prompt-bans-and-new-safety-measures_o

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/24/1189745247/silicosis-young-workers-kitchen-countertops-lung-damage-california

My guess is that the industry will be forced to greatly improve its worker safety and quartz countertops will remain available, if a little more expensive.

John, did you read this, newer article?

Yes, this is about the workers who do the fabricating, not consumers. Does that make the product any less heinous?

The fact is, Australia has already banned the product. The U.K. may follow. California is close to banning engineered counters. Thus, Caeserstone, Silestone, et.al., are having to devise products less harmful to workers, with far less silica.

I have used 4 fabricator shops in 2 states (CA and FL) ... none of them followed any safety standards and it had nothing to do with being Hispanic! One shop was Armenian, one Greek, one Brazilian (not Hispanic!) and the other run by a family from NJ. All the shops and their "showrooms" were covered in dust, be it granite, marble, quartzite, or quartz. People aren't designed to inhale any of that natural or man made dust, specially 5 days a week for several years.

Based on the information I know about particulate matter, silica is not the ONLY problem here -- inhaling particulate matter of <10 micrometers of any sort can damage lungs and have other deleterious health effects.

As I see it, banning quartz in its current form and coming out with lower-silica products is a positive, but what really needs to be done is greater worker protections (regulations) against inhalation of particulate matter of any type during fabrication, and this includes both man-made and naturally-occurring material.

“People aren't designed to inhale any of that natural or man made dust, specially 5 days a week for several years.”

That may be true. However, it’s silica that’s the problem. Manmade quartz counters have many, many times more silica than natural stone. A brand’s quartz may contain as much as 90% chrysteline silica. Catestrophic lung issues among fabricators, only became a huge problem with the onset and expansion of the engineered stone industry.

Consumers need only blame themselves for their greed at wanting low prices at any price and their foolishness at the ballot box by allowing 20 million exploitable illegal aliens into the country.

When engineered stone is fabricated wet, as manufacturers recommend, there is no silicosis as there is no dust. Consumers price shop for fabricators not making the substantial investments required to run a wet shop, putting the good guys at a competative disadvantage exaccerbated by the fly-by-night fabricators with an endless supply of exploitable workers streaming across our unprotected southern border.

We don't need to ban products; we need to ban exploitation.

And, yes…no matter the material, protection of workers’ eyes, lungs, and skin needs to be mandated. It’s beyond neglectful and disrespectful, for employers not to provide goggles and efficient masks (at the very least) to their employees.

"Catestrophic lung issues among fabricators, only became a huge problem with the onset and expansion of the engineered stone industry."

Is it specifically because of the expansion of the engineered stone industry or the large increase of natural stone and engineered stone being put into consumers' homes in general? Decades ago, it was pretty much corian, formica and materials of that ilk in people's homes, that was what was mainstream, not natural or engineered stone. I do not know the answer, just posing the question as food for thought.

From the article posted in OP's original post"

"But when researchers at the University of Adelaide and the University of Tasmaniaexamined how lung cells were affected by dust from stone products — including some reduced silica versions of engineered stone — the results suggested “silica was not the only component that was problematic,” said Chandnee Ramkissoon, a University of Adelaide research fellow in public health.

Among the other concerns Ramkissoon and her colleagues have flagged are metals such as aluminum, as well as resins that can emit volatile organic compounds when slabs are cut. They also noted that although the “reduced silica” slabs did indeed give off less crystalline silica when they were cut, the silica particles tended to be very fine. That has health implications because tinier particles can penetrate deeper into the lungs.

“It’s enough to raise questions about whether they are actually much safer,” Ramkissoon said."

So I think it's the inhalation of particulate matter, rather than specifically silica, that is the real issue. Not saying silica isn't problematic - it certainly is - but the root cause of these health problems is inhalation of dust during fabrication.

Quartz is the visible tip of the dusty iceberg. Plain granite is an issue too. Plastic and aluminum trihydrate Corian dust..… any countertop material, including laminate. Your tiler’s thinset, grout, and cutting dust from the snapper. Hot mud dust from your drywaller. Sawdust from your carpenter or cabinet maker. Especially walnut.

All of these professions and more have shortened lives because of the toll their job takes on their bodies. It’s uncomfortable to think about the human cost for all the keeping up with the Joneses people junking perfectly good home elements because of fashion. So they DON’T think about it.

”Green” choices like the new ”low silica quartz” are still washing all the pain and sickness under the rug, and ignoring the actual truth that a Green Remodel is to NOT remodel unless things are just plain worn out and non functional.

Isn’t it a law that kitchens have to be expensively remodeled every ten years to the latest conspicuous consumption trends? Think of all the hungry landfills!

“Consumers need only blame themselves for their greed at wanting low prices at any price and their foolishness at the ballot box by allowing 20 million exploitable illegal aliens into the country.” Ah, @Joseph Corlett, LLC, I think you’re blaming the wrong folks.

It’s not consumers making money on engineered stone, it’s the manufacturers making the big bucks, so if you are looking to point the greed finger, raise your middle one in the general direction of Breton SpA that patented the technology, and Silestone, Cesarstone, and all the other manufacturers who pay to use their process. That’s where the greed lies and where the big money goes - you know that.

Could manufacturers possibly foresee that manmade quartz would be cut dry in some shops with inadequate respirators and air handling, and that silicosis could ensue? Of course they could. They had to come up with the MSDS and recommended fabrication guidelines to sell the product. They have all of that data. Until it affects the bottom line they will sell quartz slabs for as long as they can to whoever will buy them. The first case reports of manmade quartz causing silicosis in stoneworkers were published more than a decade ago, and they are still manufacturing this product because it is profitable. It’s capitalism.

Big tobacco was the same until they got sued by the US government. Those companies went from growing 1.74 billion pounds of tobacco in 1997 to 431 million pounds in 2022. When manmade quartz affects ”enough” people to attract government attention, it will die out too. It’s inevitable.

Consumers always want a better product for a lower price. That’s not greed, that’s the marketplace. Capitalism works both ways. It’s also no excuse for a fabricator to run a dirty shop, or a manufacturer to create a hazardous product.

Well said, @eam44. Well said.

Many industrial processes require worker protection to be safe. Woodworkers need protection from wood dust, painters need protection from vapors, welders need protection from glare and fumes, etc. This particular industry is not protecting its workers, that needs to change, and can change as the responsible fabricators show.

Plain white Corian has existed for over 50 years, and still exists in every market that has commercial clients. It's only dried up in residential. Methyl methacrylate and aluminum trihydrate isn't really any "safer" than other particulates that happen in the industry that people should wear respirators in order to tool. Way too many think "dust masks" protect them, and don't even own a respirator.

"Methyl methacrylate and aluminum trihydrate isn't really any "safer" than other particulates that happen in the industry that people should wear respirators in order to tool."

The dust from fabricating Corian and other solid surfaces are classified as "nusiance", not as "toxic". However, machining solid surface dry releases a toxic gas.