Crafting America’s Favorite Countertops Is Killing Workers

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

Sarah Holder (0:10)

Chances are, if you've gotten a new kitchen countertop in the past decade or so, and it wasn't made from marble or granite, it was a product called artificial stone.

Josh Eidelson (0:20)

It has, to a significant extent, displaced natural stone.

Sarah Holder (0:25)

Josh Eidelson is a senior reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek, covering labor.

Josh Eidelson (0:30)

Some people feel the artificial quartz doesn't chip as much, easier to keep clean, that it is more customizable, you can make it whatever color you want.

Sarah Holder (0:43)

Josh says another important difference between natural and artificial stone is what it's made out of. Artificial stone contains a lot more of something called crystalline silica.

Josh Eidelson (0:55)

There are hundreds of workers who have sued manufacturers alleging that that product caused them to get this horrible disease, silicosis.

Sarah Holder (1:08)

On one side of these hundreds of lawsuits are the people who work in artificial stone fabrication shops.

Josh Eidelson (1:15)

Where these products are being grinded and cut and customized.

Sarah Holder (1:21)

On the other side of the lawsuits are companies involved in the rest of the artificial stone supply chain. Retailers that sell artificial stone post fabrication, like Costco, Home Depot, IKEA, and Lowe's.

And producers of artificial stone, like a company called Cambria, the largest domestic producer.

Josh Eidelson (1:43)

Cambria is facing over 600 lawsuits about this issue. Cambria's lawyer in Testimony Before Congress talked about the possibility of Cambria being sued out of existence.

Sarah Holder (1:56)

Lawsuits aren't the only potential threat to Cambria's business.

California regulators are also looking to crack down on artificial stone fabrication. But in Washington, the industry has some powerful allies. Members of Congress who are trying to insulate companies like Cambria and put a stop to lawsuits like these.

Josh Eidelson (2:18)

There are two very different paths being considered now in the United States. A ban on fabricating the product or a ban on the lawsuits against the product.

Sarah Holder (2:35)

Today on the show, how artificial stone countertops became the center of a heated political debate. And what's at stake for the companies and workers at the center of it?

SPEAKER_4 (2:51)

And Cambria is so easy to maintain, it never needs polishing or sealing.

Sarah Holder (2:55)

This is an ad from the artificial stone producer, Cambria, presenting their artificial stone countertop says, homie, welcoming.

SPEAKER_4 (3:04)

Like this kitchen, it's warm, inviting. It's the heart of the home. That's why I love Cambria Natural Quartz countertops.

Sarah Holder (3:13)

In its finished form, as a countertop or sink, artificial stone is just as safe as the natural stuff. Cambria has said that its product is even safer, more hygienic.

But the process of turning the product into a countertop is another story.

Josh Eidelson (3:30)

It's somewhat like the way that you would turn a potato into a pringle, in that you're taking stone quarried from mines, pulverize it, combine it with other ingredients like resins, take the air out of it, compress it, and cook it in an oven, and create these slabs that are then sent off to fabrication shops, which are generally separate businesses.

Sarah Holder (4:00)

It's there, at the fabrication shops, where workers grind, polish, and cut those slabs down into countertops. And that's where workers can be exposed to risks.

Josh Eidelson (4:12)

Resperable crystalline silica is released by cutting into or grinding things like stones. Artificial quartz has way more crystalline silica in it than a product like marble. Marble is up to around 5% crystalline silica.

Artificial stone can be around 93% crystalline silica.

Sarah Holder (4:41)

Wow. So when workers are working with these slabs, they're breathing in these kinds of particulates, these RCS particles, and that is what causes this disease called silicosis?

Josh Eidelson (4:55)

Yes. These are tiny particles, less than a tenth of the width of a human hair.

Mucus is no match for them. And as they accumulate in your lungs, in large numbers, those particles cause lungs to get inflamed, to scar, to shrink, to harden. And eventually, in large enough numbers, particles of respirable crystal and silica cause your lungs to fail.

Sarah Holder (5:27)

Sounds like a horrible disease.

Josh Eidelson (5:30)

It is a horrible disease. I talked to a doctor who said she wishes her patients with silicosis only had lung cancer.

Because lung cancer, at least, you can cut out.

Sarah Holder (5:43)

And this is incurable.

Josh Eidelson (5:44)

That's right.

Sarah Holder (5:46)

Silicosis isn't new. In fact, Josh says it's existed for millennia.

Josh Eidelson (5:52)

There are signs of silicosis in bodies of mummies that have been studied and in the writings of Hippocrates. So, silicosis has been a known killer at large for thousands of years.