Photo: RNZ/Samantha Gee
A New Zealand stone fabricator is calling on manufacturers and consumers to end the use of potentially deadly crystalline-silica engineered stone.
About 1000 workers are thought to have been been exposed to high concentrations of respirable crystalline-silica dust while working with engineered stone slabs during the past 15 years.
The product has been banned in Australia and while the New Zealand government considers tighter controls, AGB Stone - one of the country's largest fabricators - has already made the switch to zero-silica engineered stone and is calling on others to do the same.
The company has been manufacturing bench tops for 18 years and has now opened the country's first zero-crystalline-silica engineered stone fabrication factory in Tasman.
Co-owner Cam Paranthoiene said the business was no longer using high silica engineered stone after the ban in Australia.
"We went to investigate zero-silica [products] commercially because we lost a big contract, but once we found out the impact on the staff in Australia, we knew that we had to do the same thing for our staff here.
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