Engineered Stone and Australia: A License to Cut
Two of Australia’s state governments cracked down on engineered-stone fabrication late last one, including a new effort to license shops handling the manufactured surface.
At a Feb. 27 seminar in Melbourne, the Victoria state government announced plans to regulate fabrication shops with a licensing plan to ensure proper safe handling of the material
Jill Hennessy, Victoria’s Minister for Workplace Safety, announced the licensing effort at Silicosis Summit: A preventative approach, which brought WorkSafe (Australia’s workplace-safety agency), experts and industry together to discuss the prevention of silica-dust exposure.
Under the licensing proposal, any employer working with engineered stone, will be required to obtain a license. The supply of engineered stone in Victoria would also be limited to valid license holders only.
License requirements would be the use of appropriate safety measures to protect workers from exposure to silica dust. Existing users of engineered stone would have 12 months to apply to WorkSafe for a license, giving them time to review their work practices and make any necessary changes.
The licensing builds on Victoria’s action plan announced last May, after a jump in silicosis-based claims from workers involved in engineered-stone fabrication. That plan included a ban on dry cutting, a tough new compliance code, free health assessments for Victoria’s 1,400 stonemasons and a targeted enforcement blitz by WorkSafe inspectors.
In neighboring New South Wales, state government officials announced Feb. 21 that a full ban on dry cutting of engineered stone will begin July 1. A silica workplace of 0.05mg/m³ will also begin on the same date. WorkSafe inspectors will be able to issue on-the-spot fines of non-compliance.
The number of silicosis cases across Australia is estimated at 350 by Dr Graeme Edwards, a Brisbane-based occupational physician and Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP).
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