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A comment on Australia to Ban Engineered Stone. Parent comment

Re:Australia to Ban Engineered Stone by legitster on Wednesday December 13, 2023 @08:06PM (#38636530)
The exposure to silica comes from cutting and grinding - and there is probably more exposure to cutting and grinding from natural stone (first at the quarry and second in production).

I think the important distinction is that with natural stone, much more is cut to fit from the factory (which is easier to handle dust) vs cut on site.

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Re:Australia to Ban Engineered Stone by newaccount74 on Thursday December 14, 2023 @03:11AM (#38638983)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that nobody tries to cut granite on site with an angle grinder. It's so difficult because the material is so hard.

Granite countertops are typically cut off-site with a waterjet, which creates zero dust.

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Re:Australia to Ban Engineered Stone by rbanffy on Thursday December 14, 2023 @06:24AM (#38640180)
I wonder why those parts are not made in the desired shape already with no need to cut or sand in place.
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Re:Australia to Ban Engineered Stone by NoGravitas on Thursday December 14, 2023 @08:01AM (#38640850)
I assume it's because kitchens and bathrooms aren't made in standardized sizes to fit standardized counters.
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Re:Australia to Ban Engineered Stone by xxs on Thursday December 14, 2023 @11:29AM (#38643146)
No perfect walls (also changes w/ temperature/humidity), drilling holes, misalignment, imperfect measurements...

Since it's a luxury but not a super expensive product, the more expensive process of precise measurement, off-site waterjet/laser cutting is not suitable.

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Re:Australia to Ban Engineered Stone by caf on Thursday December 14, 2023 @08:39PM (#38650054)
This I suspect nails the question of "why doesn't natural silica-containing stone cause the same problems?" asked several times elsethread.
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