Washington — A brand new OSHA initiative is aimed toward defending workers within the engineered stone fabrication and set up industries from silica publicity.
Breathing in respirable crystalline silica – which is 100 occasions smaller than a grain of sand – can lead to medical points similar to continual obstructive pulmonary illness, lung most cancers and incurable silicosis, outlined by NIOSH as “an irreversible but preventable lung disease.”
The initiative will direct enforcement efforts and compliance help to employers who fall below two North American Industry Classification System codes:
- 327991 – Cut Stone and Stone Product Manufacturing
- 423320 – Brick, Stone and Related Construction Material Merchant Wholesalers
The initiative, which dietary supplements OSHA’s National Emphasis Program on respirable crystalline silica, “will focus enforcement efforts on industry employers to make sure they’re following required safety standards and providing workers with the protections required to keep them healthy.”
As a part of the company’s compliance help efforts, OSHA will share truth sheets on mud management strategies and protected work practices.
“Many workers in the engineered stone industry are experiencing illnesses so severe that they’re unable to breathe – much less work a full shift – because of their exposure to silica dust,” OSHA administrator Doug Parker stated in a Sept. 25 press launch. “Among them is a 27-year-old worker in California who went to an emergency room with shortness of breath in 2022 and whose lung biopsy later revealed he had silicosis. Since then, he has been on an oxygen tank and unable to support his wife and three young children financially.”
