This reeks of unnecessary heavy-handedness that hurts everyone. The specified natural alternative (granite) is nearly half silica and is a known health hazard.
All this regulation does is allow sloppy work that'll kill people a little more slowly.
There's already an automatic process for this. They get silicosis.
But I agree, this would be good.
But I think the decision here is basically that, in practice, it's very difficult to actually get people to follow the required practices, in practice. As has been shown in practice.
I feel for the people who were early in the industry who had no idea this could happen to them, but now that it's known, if a contractor doesn't feel like taking appropriate precautions, then they get what they deserve.
Banning an entire industry because people cut corners is just dumb.
But I, personally, am happy to accept the 'Human Factors' side of reality.
It doesn’t just affect them. Everyone nearby gets exposed. People who come later to clean get exposed. Customers can get exposed.
asbestos was banned for similar reasons, or are you saying that it shouldn’t have been banned either because of “people cutting corners with ppe” - it too is perfectly safe when handled safely
The product is generally installed onsite in a fast paced building industry that doesn’t have time/room to do it properly and often no supervision (1-2 often independent trades doing the installs) to ensure the appropriate measures are actually taken.
The risk has already been known for a while and in practice still lots of “YOLO” onsite cutting without even respirators.