News Update 

The recent crackdown on engineered stone worktops has put silica dust in the headlines. That’s welcome – but it’s easy to read those stories and assume the risk is limited to kitchen countertops. It isn’t.

Ordinary building materials cause exactly the same problem. Bricks, concrete, mortar, sandstone, granite, tiles, slate and marble all contain silica – it’s naturally part of the stone, not something added in a factory. Cut it, drill it or grind it, and you release a fine dust that’s often invisible to the naked eye.

So the question to ask isn’t “are we working with engineered stone?” It’s “could anyone be breathing in dust from cutting, drilling or grinding stone, brick or concrete?” If the answer’s yes – on any job, for any material – this applies to you.

Why it’s worth taking seriously

This dust is fine enough to travel deep into the lungs, where the body can’t clear it. Over time, that causes permanent damage – silicosis (progressively worsening breathing), lung cancer, and other serious lung disease. None of it is reversible, which is exactly why prevention beats any amount of treatment.

It’s also far from rare: HSE believes silica dust is responsible for the deaths of over 500 construction workers every year in the UK, and estimates that over 200,000 workers are regularly exposed to it across construction, quarrying, brickmaking and stonework. For smaller firms without a dedicated H&S team, it’s easy for this risk to slip under the radar simply because it’s so common and so familiar – but familiar doesn’t mean safe.

What good practice looks like

The reassuring part: this is entirely preventable with a few consistent habits.

• Keep it wet. Water suppression on cutting tools is the single biggest reduction in dust you can achieve – it stops the dust escaping into the air in the first place.
• Use extraction where you can. Tools with dust extraction capture particles before anyone breathes them in.
• Treat RPE as your backup, not your main defence. The right respiratory protective equipment matters, but it should be the last line of protection, properly fitted and face-fit tested — not a substitute for wet cutting or extraction.
• Offer health checks for regularly exposed workers. Health surveillance can pick up early warning signs long before someone would notice symptoms themselves – and it’s a legal expectation, not just good practice, where exposure is ongoing.

The bottom line: this isn’t about ticking a box for engineered stone and moving on. If cutting, drilling or grinding stone, brick or concrete is part of the job – on any site, with any material – it’s worth checking that water suppression, extraction and proper RPE are actually in place and being used, not just written down somewhere. It’s also worth checking when health checks were last offered to anyone regularly exposed. None of this is complicated or expensive to get right, but it’s the kind of thing that’s easy to overlook simply because the materials feel so familiar. A quick conversation today is a lot easier than dealing with the consequences of getting it wrong.