Paranthoiene said the factory was the way of the future and gave peace of mind to staff and their families.<\/p>\n
Previously his company had invested millions of dollars in state-of-the-art machinery and was an early adopter of wet-cutting and air monitoring.<\/p>\n
Cam Paranthoiene, co-owner of the country\u2019s largest stone fabricator AGB, says his company’s purpose-built zero-silica factory, which opened in Nelson last week, is the way of the future for the industry.<\/p>\n
Scott said there was no danger in quarries, or at the benchtop-manufacturing stage, as companies had suppression techniques such as using water and dust extractor systems.<\/p>\n
That was not the case when the benchtops were being installed in homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the guys are cutting a hole to put a tap in, you can\u2019t use water because you\u2019re in someone\u2019s kitchen or bathroom. The guys have a very high exposure \u2013 it\u2019s about 100 times the exposure someone would get in a quarry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paranthoiene said AGB used wet techniques when drilling holes on site. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf cutting is required, we bring it back to the factory to wet cut here. But how do you police that and ensure everyone does it 24-7?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are using a zero silica product, with sensible precautions, we can cut anywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cCorporate New Zealand is the segment that could make the biggest difference \u2013 aged care, apartment builders, group home builders. That probably takes up 50% of the market. If they all came on board there would not be enough volume for importers to justify bringing in any high-silica products.”<\/p>\n
Scott said the Council of Trade Unions and The Employers and Manufacturers\u2019 Association supported an Australian-type ban.<\/p>\n
More than 100 people had died from silicosis lung cancer in Australia and about 700 compensation claims had been made against employers.<\/p>\n
Paranthoiene said the Australian Government banned engineered stone with any silica level, but kept natural stone, ceramics, concrete and others that contained RCS.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see why, but in theory if it\u2019s safe for a tile cutter to cut ceramic tiles, then you could argue that logic should be applied to low-silica engineered stone products.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the belief is that there is no safe threshold for RCS, then logically all products should be banned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott also wants New Zealand to follow Australia in establishing a register that mandates the reporting of silicosis. <\/p>\n
The data identifies high-risk industries, occupations and workplaces, and allows for targeted early intervention and preventive measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have any data in this country so … people think there\u2019s no problem through the lack of information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paranthoiene said reporting did exist.<\/p>\n
\u201cACC should know everyone that\u2019s registered with silicosis or with symptoms \u2013 have they or WorkSafe done full investigations into what industry they were in, how it happened, what the standards that the people have been subjected to have silicosis were, what monitoring was done?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about having a register in isolation. You actually have to act on the data you have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott said New Zealand was one of the last countries to \u201ctake positive action on asbestos\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
There had been other issues such as hazardous materials and chemicals being used in agriculture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a bit slow to react. We almost try to convince ourselves that we don\u2019t have a problem. The lack of data (from a registry) leads people to think there\u2019s not a problem. People could be dying from lung cancer from their work, but it\u2019s not identified.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott said there were about 10,000 active cases of silicosis in Australia, but no available data in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
The Government is reviewing options concerning engineered stone.<\/p>\n
Scott recently wrote to Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden asking for an update.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Governments \u201cdid a fair bit of talking, but not a great deal of action sometimes\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current Government had consulted on health and safety, they\u2019re made announcements, but once again, nothing has actually happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI must admit, I am getting a little impatient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Govt reviewing advice on engineered stone safety rules: Minister<\/p>\n
Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden says an evidence-based approach \u201cin a New Zealand context\u201d will be used when making decisions around engineered stone.<\/p>\n
MBIE\u2019s public consultation earlier this year received 68 submissions from diverse Kiwi businesses and organisations, she told the Gisborne Herald in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am now considering MBIE\u2019s advice and will report back to Cabinet on themes and proposed policy direction in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n
Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden. <\/p>\n
WorkSafe led a range of education and enforcement activity to ensure businesses controlled the risks from working with engineered stone, the statement said.<\/p>\n
Several initiatives had been established to encourage businesses to improve their risk management practices.<\/p>\n
WorkSafe had conducted inspections in workplaces fabricating engineered stone since 2019, published information for businesses and workers on respirable crystalline silica (RSC) and silicosis, and reduced the workplace exposure standard for RCS in 2019 and again in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorkSafe has observed that businesses are now more aware of the risks of exposure to RCS and, overall, are managing RCS risks more effectively than when inspectors first visited in 2019,\u201d van Velden said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cLast year we became the first in the country to supply a zero-silica engineered stone alternative, the safest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1060,17517,100627,3043,100629,7191,52785,28164,100628,78,76,64955,117,111,43,139,69,10903,24173,4460,56426,21271,91929,7192,94719,94717,28723,61,80],"class_list":["post-150530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-ban","tag-because","tag-benchtops","tag-call","tag-debated","tag-disease","tag-engineered","tag-fears","tag-hotly","tag-in","tag-issue","tag-lung","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-popular","tag-posed","tag-product","tag-progressive","tag-prompt","tag-repeat","tag-risk","tag-silica","tag-silicosis","tag-stone","tag-to","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}