An engineered stone bench. File photo. Photo: The Detail/Alexia Russell
Employers, unions and health and safety advocates are calling for engineered stone to be banned, a day before consultation on regulations for the material closes.
Engineered stone is a man made material used in products such as benchtops and flooring.
When it is cut, dust particles called crystalline silica are released that can cause silicosis and other serious lung diseases when breathed in.
In Australia engineered stone was banned due to a rise of silicosis diagnoses in workers using it.
The Employers and Manufacturers' Association, The Council of Trade Unions and MinEx - the national health and safety council for New Zealand's extractive sector - want a similar ban.
MinEx chief executive Wayne Scott told RNZ the organisations also wanted a Occupational Lung Disease Registry to provide data to track illness rates and provide support to affected workers.
"We don't have any data in this country so what tends to happen is people just tend to think there's no problem through the lack of information."
He said the mining and quarrying sector were already mandated to conduct regular exposure monitoring and lung tests on their workers every five years, as well as often consented requirements to reduce any dust created by their operations.
"No such requirements apply to other sectors where workers can be exposed to Respirable Crystalline Silica including construction, concrete cutting, glass and some other trades."
Scott said that there was other materials people can use.
"You can get zero silica content stone benchtops."
He said companies like Bunnings banned it in 2019, which indicated there were a number of people in the industry that believe it was not a good product.
The options the government have consulted on include a ban, mandatory worker exposure monitoring and licensing of workplaces that fabricate engineered stone.
Scott said he had not had an indication yet on what the government's preferred option was.
He said an MBIE document released by Workplace Safety Minister Brooke van Velden identified that approximately 270,000 New Zealand workers may be exposed to RCS - and 80,000 of them at high levels.
WorkSafe estimates the total number of fabrication workers in the engineered stone industry since 2001 at about 1000.
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