Around this time last year, a Los Angeles County jury passed down a landmark judgment in the case of Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez—a 34-year-old stonecutter who had contracted the respiratory illness silicosis after breathing in the crystalline silica dust released during the fabrication of engineered stone, and was eventually required to get a double lung transplant. In the end, Reyes Gonzalez was awarded more than $52 million in damages, with partial liability attributed to manufacturers Caesarstone USA (15 percent) and Cambria (10 percent). The case presented a reckoning of sorts: Where would the engineered-stone industry go from here?
One year later, the landscape has already changed. The shift was clear at the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show in February, where several manufacturers displayed their new low- and zero-silica surfaces—alternatives to engineered stone specifically crafted to reduce levels of the harmful material. Whether these new options are the answer to reversing the silicosis epidemic is more complicated.
While the effects of disease have been known since ancient times, it’s long been attributed to stoneworkers in their old age following a lifetime of exposure to crystalline silica particles. Since the introduction of artificial stone in the 1990s, however, the high concentration of the silica has produced an alarming number of silicosis cases in younger workers like Reyes Gonzalez. While natural stones like marble and granite contain relatively low levels of crystalline silica, artificial stone is often made up of at least 90 percent. When fabricators cut stone, this type of silica dust releases into the air; inhaling it can cause damage to the lungs, including inflammation, permanent scarring and eventual respiratory failure.
Even before the stoneworker’s legal victory last year, alarm bells had been going off elsewhere in the industry: In 2023, Australia passed a nationwide ban on engineered stone to reduce cases of silica-related illness, while manufacturers have faced silicosis lawsuits overseas as far back as 2015.
Staring down an industry crisis, manufacturers went to work on new formulas for engineered stone that didn’t include crystalline silica. Caesarstone introduced the first of its new silica-free products with this summer’s debut of Icon, a surface that’s free of all but traces of crystalline silica (up to 1 percent). Now, the manufacturer is going back through its product catalog and transitioning customer favorites to the new formula, starting with 19 different quartz styles, plus eight new designs. “That’s going to continually cut back on any of this crystalline silica in the assortment,” says Tyler Thompson, director of brand marketing at Caesarstone U.S.
Cosentino took a more gradual approach: Back in 2020, the brand launched its Q40 and Q10 Silestone surface products, which are made up of a maximum of 40 percent and 10 percent crystalline silica, respectively. By 2023, the manufacturer had transitioned 85 percent of its surfaces to the Q40 formula, and 15 percent to the Q10. At KBIS this year, the company previewed its first zero-silica surface, Q0, made with 90 percent recycled content, “premium minerals”—and a crystalline silica content below 1 percent. Much like Caesarstone, the manufacturer is clear that occupational safety was a key factor in developing the new formula.
“For us, it’s safety, sustainability and innovation of design, but really the driving force was [that] we knew reducing silica content helps control the exposure of the dust within the workplace,” says Patty Dominguez, vice president of architecture and design sales at Cosentino. “But it’s key to highlight that’s when the proper safety measures are used and utilized in the shops.”
Coming on the heels of the Reyes Gonzalez lawsuit and the Australian ban, the rate at which manufacturers rolled out their alternatives was swift. While this was a welcome improvement, the speed poses a new question: What exactly is the replacement material—and is it better than what came before?
“The best way to understand whether something is really an improvement or not is to ask what it is made of and how it impacts human and planetary health,” says Leila Behjat, director of material ecology for the Healthy Materials Lab at the New School’s Parsons School of Design. “If I’m given transparency, and I understand the chemicals that are there, then I can make a conclusion: Is that really an improvement, or just a Band-Aid—a fix that makes everybody feel better, but it’s not improving anything, really.”
Historically, one-for-one swaps to avoid a harmful chemical haven’t always been the improvement they’re advertised to be. When it was discovered that bisphenol A, or BPA—a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics—could produce harmful health effects, many brands touted new alternatives that instead utilized bisphenol S, or BPS. Before long, it became clear that the substitute posed similar risks as its predecessor. That’s not to say that the same is taking place in the stone industry, but rather that additional information on manufacturers’ new proprietary blends could help organizations like the Healthy Materials Lab conduct their own assessments of the material’s impact on health.
“It definitely starts with transparency. We would want to know what is in it, ideally 100 percent—what type of glue or adhesive or resin,” says Behjat. “It could [also mean] an indoor air quality test while it’s in the fabrication state, or testing the dust, testing the material itself in its raw state.” Until then, the Healthy Materials Lab is left still determining whether or not the new introductions are suitable alternatives.
Even with the reduction or removal of crystalline silica, the process of cutting artificial stone poses risks that adjusting the composition of the material can’t solve. In Reyes Gonzalez’s case, the fabricator shop that employed him was attributed partial liability alongside the stone manufacturers. While acknowledging that low-silica and no-silica stones are likely far safer for workers than their counterparts, James Nevin, an attorney on Reyes Gonzalez’s legal team, points to studies demonstrating that the occupational hazards of engineered stone fabrication run deeper than silica.
“If we look at high-content artificial stone and why it’s dangerous, it’s three different things: it’s the high content, the nano size and the other toxins. Low-content artificial stone—yes, it has removed the high content, but it’s still nano size, and it still has the other toxins,” says Nevin.
Elsewhere, the issue of consumer education presents an added hurdle to widespread adoption of the new alternatives. Spanish manufacturer Neolith began developing low-silica alternatives roughly four years ago amid growing awareness of silicosis, and unveiled its first silica-free surfaces in 2024. Still, according to James Amendola, CEO of Neolith Americas, it’s not yet clear if consumers are embracing the new options.
“I don’t think there’s maybe enough word on the street,” says Amendola. “The concerns for silica—we’re starting to see it more on the West Coast, and we see fabricators taking the necessary steps as well. As far as getting the demand for it, I don’t think there’s enough news about it at this point out there in the market. We do our advertising campaigns, but this industry has been around for a very long time, and this silica movement has taken place in the last three years, so it’s still in its earliest stages.”
To that end, manufacturers like Caesarstone are working to tie in the value of the product with its sustainability benefits—Icon is formulated with roughly 80 percent postindustrial recycled materials—along with focusing more on communicating with trade professionals than end users.
“I don’t think that the average homeowner puts this in their conscientious chain of purchases,” says Thompson. “They know that the end-use product is 100 percent healthy to be in a home, so I don’t know that [fabricator safety] really concerns them that much from what we’re seeing in reports and research. It really lies more in the A&D community—the designers who work with the product every day. That’s where the education needs to happen.”
Meanwhile, it’s still too early to tell if the alternatives have had an impact on the silicosis epidemic. The caseload continues to climb, with the California Department of Public Health’s Engineered Stone Silicosis Surveillance Dashboard recording up to 391 cases and 22 deaths in the state alone. The median age of diagnosis is 46; the median age at death is 47. At his firm, Nevin has 550 clients from California, who among them have worked at roughly 1,000 fabrication shops.
“Anything that the manufacturers of the slabs or consumers can do to shift the market away from the high-content crystalline-silica artificial stone, the better it is for the fabricator,” says Nevin.
