Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
The latest news from the Stone Industry

This is a picture of a young man in a small British worktop fabrication factory cutting a piece of engineered quartz. It is not staged. He is not wearing a mask and although there is a water wall it is behind him as he sends RCS out into the workshop. Conditions like this are leading to silicosis among people employed in making worktops. It is becoming a growing concern around the world.
26 September 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
Engineered quartz presents possibly a greater danger of causing silicosis among people who breath in the dust from it as they cut and process it than sandstone, granite or slate.In a report this week...

HSE is running a HAVS refresher course at the HSE training centre at Harpur Hill, Buxton, Derbyshire, on 2 October. You can book your place(s) here.
11 September 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has updated its hand-arm vibration exposure calculator, which is a spreadsheet you can download from the HSE website here (do not disable the macros or it won...
5 September 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
Dacorum Borough Council in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, has been fined £100,000 and ordered to pay £28,672.62 costs for exposing seven grounds maintenance workers to Hand Arm Vibration...
9 August 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
For two-and-a-half years a company in charge of the renovation of a property in Blackpool put its workers at risk of serious personal injury or death.The workers did not have the appropriate...
5 August 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
A construction company has been fined £1million and ordered to pay more than £100,000 costs after a worker was crushed to death by an excavator on a site the company was working.Southwark...
2 August 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
A company providing specialised services in rock drilling, cliff stabilisation and rock anchors and its director have been sentenced after a number of workers were diagnosed with hand arm vibration...
23 July 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
Failing to provide warm water in a site toilet that was not kept clean cost a company in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, an £8,000 fine plus £1,814.90 costs when it appeared before...
17 July 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
Kitchen worktop company The Solid Surface Shop UK Ltd has been fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £6,181.51 costs for ignoring five Improvement Notices from the Health & Safety...
11 July 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
An installer has had his leg amputated just below the groin after a section of staircase weighing 1.7 tonnes fell on him when the fabric slings being used to lift it into position failed.As a result...
10 July 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
A company told by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) to stop exposing its workers to respirable crystalline silica when they sawed flagstones but continued to do so has been fined £20,000...
3 July 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
A few days before the Health & Safety Executive published fatality figures of 2018/19 showing that falls from height still kill more people at work than any other single cause, a company and its...
25 June 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
Lettercutter Ieuan Rees has become a YouTube sensation with a video that was recorded in 2012.Ieuan, from Ammanford in Carmarthenshire, Wales, is now 78 years old. The video has suddenly attracted...
25 June 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
Three brothers living in Ilford, East London, and operating as part of what the Metropolitan Police describe as a Romanian organised crime group have been sentenced to a total of 28 years in...
19 June 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
The Door & Hardware Federation is hammering home the significance of appropriate training following the death of a woman killed in an industrial door incident. The Incident took place in August...
14 June 2019 | Health, Safety, Ethical & Environmental
Just as the Health & Safety Executive has announced it is intending to crack down on workplace dust in the coming weeks, a stonemasonry company has been fined £8,000 with £10,000...