Do YOU have a killer kitchen worktop? Half of new kitchen surfaces are made from artifical quartz. Now STEVE BOGGAN’s horrifying investigation reveals how they can cause incurable, fatal lung diseases…

Stonemason Alan Slater has been warning colleagues for years about faux quartz worktops, which have become Britain’s No.1 kitchen choice.

‘I was with probably 15 companies, and at every one I was saying, ‘We shouldn’t be working with this stuff, it’s dangerous,” he says.

‘But I was told to just get on with my job and everything will be fine.’ Unfortunately, all is not well for 56-year-old Alan. He is one of a growing number of tradesmen suffering from silicosis, an incurable lung disease caused by breathing in the dust of the ‘engineering’ stone he is so worried about.

Engineered stone is a manufactured composite material containing high concentrations of silica (silicon dioxide), a mineral commonly found in the Earth’s crust.

Artificial stone is produced by bonding finely crushed crystalline silica with polymer resins and pigments to create a hardened, shiny surface. The final product contains 90 to 97 percent silica, compared to natural granite or marble, which contain about 30 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

Such high concentrations cause stonemasons to develop silicosis at a younger age and the disease progresses more quickly; This condition is known as ‘accelerated silicosis’.

According to online interior design site Houzz, 42 percent of us now use engineered quartz surfaces in our kitchens. Once installed they are completely safe but can come at a cost to the masons who prepare them for installation.

When artificial stone is cut and shaped in the workshop, microscopic particles containing ‘respirable crystalline silica’ (RCS) are released and can cause serious damage to the lungs if inhaled even for a short time. This results in severe shortness of breath, weight loss, fatigue, persistent cough, and in some cases, death.

‘I’ve been a stonemason since 1986 and over the years granite, marble and Portland stone have become less and less engineered stone,’ says Alan, from Brentford, Essex. ‘You wear a mask with a real stone and get on the airline’ [blower] To remove all the dust from your hair and clothes after cutting your hair.

‘But you can’t do this with engineered stone because it’s too thin and after you take off your mask you can see the particles still floating in the sunlight; It’s on your clothes, it doesn’t come out of your hair. A nightmare to escape. ‘I kept telling the bosses it was fatal but they told me to keep going.’

Silicosis is as old as working with stone. When caused by dust from traditional stone and sandblasting or brick making, it is slow to develop and usually manifests as lung damage decades later among retired workers.

But exposure to engineered stone causes illness among stonemasons who have been working with it for only a few years. And instead of being in their 50s, 60s and 70s, these new victims are turning up in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

The first cases of silicosis from processed stones in Britain were confirmed as recently as 2023 by Dr Johanna Feary, consultant in occupational lung diseases at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London.

He examined eight cases in which the average age of the patients was just 34 years old. The number of patients has since increased to over 50; a dozen of these were classified as accelerated silicosis. The average age of 50 silicosis patients was 43 years. The average age of patients with accelerated silicosis is only 30 years old. Three of the first eight cases died.

‘If you’ve been exposed to silica for more than ten years we call it chronic silicosis, if you’ve been exposed for less than ten years we call it accelerated silicosis or acute silicosis,’ says Dr Feary. ‘A lot of people we see have accelerated silicosis and so are actually quite young. These are usually healthy men who get sick very quickly. Some of them are in their early to mid-20s and have newborns, and I tell them they have this condition. “It’s really hard for them.”

Alan, 56, is one of a growing number of tradesmen suffering from silicosis, an incurable lung disease caused by inhaling dust from “engineered” stone.

Alan first noticed his symptoms two years ago. ‘I used to go to the gym a lot and then I started noticing I was out of breath,’ he says.

‘I thought, what’s going on? ‘I’d been going to the gym for about 20 years and usually got through my routines but suddenly I couldn’t.’

Alan, who was misdiagnosed with chest infections several times, was taken to Chichester hospital after falling ill while visiting his partner in West Sussex.

‘They told me I had pneumonia and I thought it was strange; I was a fit and healthy man, why would I get pneumonia?’ he says. ‘I was then given lung function tests at West Middlesex hospital and they said I had silicosis, probably from my work. But I thought it was weird because I’ve been wearing a mask my entire career. It turned out that this was no protection for the fine dust thrown up by engineering stones.’

Alan, now under Dr Feary’s care, knows there is no cure for the disease. He also knows that lung scarring can continue to spread even after he stops working with the stone. Treatments are limited to inhalers, bronchodilators, and in severe cases, oxygen. It was learned that a handful of patients were waiting for a lung transplant.

‘The worst thing is not knowing if the disease will progress or get worse,’ says Alan. ‘Most people don’t understand what it is and how potentially fatal it is, so I don’t talk about it much, especially with my family, because I don’t want to worry them. But it’s always on my mind.”

Most people diagnosed with silicosis do not die from the disease, especially if it is caught early, but their life expectancy may be shortened. As many as 500 former construction workers out of a workforce of 600,000 are thought to die from some form of silicosis each year, but there is no national classification distinguishing chronic silicosis from accelerated silicosis.

Anecdotally, accelerated silicosis deaths from artificial stone are thought to be on the rise.

Australia adopted engineered stone earlier than the United Kingdom and banned it in 2024. A parliamentary report on the substance in December last year warned: ‘It is estimated that approximately 10,390 Australians will develop lung cancer as a direct result of dust exposure in their lifetime.’

Thompson’s personal injury lawyers representing victims and the Trades Union Congress are at the forefront of calls for a ban on engineered stones. Shelly Asquith, TUC’s Health and Safety Policy Officer, said: ‘Silica dust is known to be lethal and workers’ lives are put at risk every day from cutting engineered stone.

‘While measures to improve protection and reduce exposure are welcome, the most effective way to prevent disease is elimination. The UK should follow the example of Australia, where the supply and cutting of engineered stone is now banned. This will save lives.’

When artificial stone is cut and shaped in the workshop, microscopic particles containing ‘respirable crystalline silica’ (RCS) are expelled and can cause serious damage to the lungs.

The TUC has held talks with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) about an outright ban, but the HSE is not in favor of such a ban, arguing that laws and processes to protect workers already exist, they just need to be enforced.

These include cutting stones by pressing them with water to absorb dust and providing appropriate respirators.

‘We will be publishing updated guidance to create wider awareness of the correct controls for those working with engineered stone,’ the HSE says. ‘We will also carry out targeted inspections of workplaces and impose sanctions where we find workers are at risk.’ All this came too late for Polish stonemason Marek Marzec, who died of accelerated silicosis in London in November 2024, aged just 48. He had been diagnosed with the disease only six months ago.

Before he died he said: ‘I came to the UK to make a better life and my two little daughters [back home] They were financially secure. Instead, I was left short of breath and in terrible pain from the work I was doing cutting quartz countertops.

‘I can’t tell you how angry I am that I was allowed to work in these conditions and that my life was cut short just because I was doing my job. I’m not the only one whose life is at risk because of this deadly powder.

‘It is time for urgent action to stop these dangerous working conditions that I am forced to face, before other stone workers catch this terrible disease and die.’

Ewan Tant, one of the Leigh Day lawyers who sued Marek’s former employers, said he was shocked at the speed at which his client’s condition had deteriorated. ‘When I first visited him at home he was living in a one-bedroom flat in Tottenham, north London,’ he says.

‘He was on the first floor and on oxygen and had trouble getting down the stairs to let me in. He was alone and it felt cruel to see him like this.

‘I went again a month later and this time he couldn’t use the stairs. He dropped his keys out the window. I found this very devastating; he was only slightly older than me. Seeing him struggle to get up and down the stairs was like watching someone in their 70s or 80s with lung disease. But just a few months ago he was a fit and healthy young man.’

Possibly due to a lack of awareness about silicosis among the public, consumers still want engineered quartz kitchen surfaces; But how can they buy them with a clear conscience?

Next month the British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) is launching a kitemark-style certification scheme for safely manufactured stone worktops

So far they have failed to do so; But next month the British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS), which campaigns for workplace safety, and the Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Federation, which represents 60 per cent of companies in the sector, could change this.

They are launching a kitemark-style certification program for safely manufactured stone countertops.

‘The workplaces of manufacturers in the scheme will be inspected and monitored by registered occupational hygienists and experts in controlling workplace health risks,’ says Professor Kevin Bampton, chief executive of BOHS.

‘The program will allow consumers to see where the machine is produced and who the manufacturer is in a healthy working environment.

‘We want consumers to make choices to have the product they want; but not at the expense of the health of some younger workers.’

Perhaps the final word should go to the workbench federation’s chief operating officer, Nigel Fletcher, who says his members are keen to weed out ‘cowboys’ who put workers in the industry at risk.

‘As with all industries, there are those who care and just want to make pure profit; “I call the guys who don’t care ‘cowboys’,” he says. ‘If cowboys aren’t prepared to spend thousands of pounds to keep their workers safe, they can sell a stall for less than £1,000 from those who care.

‘So if you’re offered something that looks ridiculously cheap, you might buy it but you could be putting someone’s life at risk.

‘And that’s up to you and your conscience.’