The UK Health and Safety Executive has published a new guide of “do’s and don’ts” for installers of stone worktops.
In January 2025, the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published a new resource to promote health and safety during installation of stone worktops. The guide is available on the HSE’s campaigns website, Work Right. You can access it here.
Quick and easy to read, the guide is intended to raise awareness and remind all workplaces that fit stone worksurfaces of the importance of health and safety practices.
Mike Calcutt, a deputy director at HSE, says that inspectors have often found poor management of health and safety measures and that businesses need to “act now” to comply with legislation and protect workers’ health.
Who is the guide for?
The new guide is for installers of stone worktops (often used in kitchens, bathrooms, hospitality and commercial spaces, and laboratories), as well as their managers and supervisors. However, the information could be useful to anyone who works with stone and carries out activities such as cutting, chiselling, and polishing.
What’s it about?
The guide states what you should and shouldn’t do, from a safety perspective, when fitting stone worksurfaces. The advice was written with input from industry stakeholders and is split into four sections:
- Competent staff and effective processes
- Pre-installation
- On-site installation
- Post-installation
It refers to adequate training, reporting of issues, checking and maintaining of equipment, and cleaning methods. It thus draws on many aspects of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations, which are central to UK occupational health and safety law.
Image source: HSE Work Right campaign.
Stone dust is a hazardous substance
The COSHH regulations protect people from hazardous substances at work. Stone dust, the mixture of dust particles produced when processing stone, is classified as a hazardous substance. Larger dust particles are known as “inhalable dust” and can irritate the eyes, nose, and throat. Smaller “respirable” dust is more dangerous as it can penetrate the lungs. It is even more dangerous when the stone used contains crystalline silica (a type of mineral) because the dust will contain respirable crystalline silica (RCS).
Regular exposure to even very small amounts of RCS can put you at risk of:
- Silicosis – If RCS builds up in the lungs, it can cause hardening and scarring of lung tissue and loss of lung function. This is a serious and irreversible condition.
- Lung cancer – Crystalline silica dust is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen. How RCS causes lung cancer is not entirely understood. It is thought that, because silica deposits cannot be removed by the body, they cause persistent inflammation and damage, triggering abnormal cell growth.
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – This is a collection of conditions that result from damage to the lungs and airways. It makes breathing difficult and can be extremely disabling.
The British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) reports that 500 UK construction workers die each year from silicosis and that silica is linked to 4,000 deaths a year from COPD. They believe that 75,000 cases could be prevented if action was taken.
Hopefully the HSE’s new guide will precipitate this action and reduce incidences of these life-changing diseases.
More detail on the topic can be found in the HSE’s 2022 Controlling exposure to stone dust publication.
Because of the seriousness of RCS exposure, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health write that workplaces where silica might be found will need the help of an occupational hygiene professional. Cura Terrae are a BOHS-accredited occupational hygiene consultancy with an experienced team of industry experts. We can help with controlling exposure to stone dust. Find our full range of services here.
Read more: Our Occupational Hygiene Director, Susan Lett, writes that RCS is the next asbestos.
