Mitre 10, Home Hardware, Total Tools and Hardings join businesses banning potentially deadly engineered stone

Four more companies have announced they will ban the potentially deadly engineered stone, following in the footsteps of Bunnings and Ikea.

Independent Hardware Group, which includes Mitre 10, has become the latest business to sever ties with potentially deadly engineered stone products.

IHG – which also includes Home Hardware, Total Tools and Hardings – will remove all engineered stone from its company-owned retail outlets and will encourage member stores to do the same.

It follows Bunnings and Ikea which have already announced they would phase out engineered stone, which contains silica dust that can kill workers via diseases such as silicosis.

Independent Hardware Group, which includes Mitre 10, will no longer sell engineered stone. Picture: Supplied

“We are now seeing a tidal wave of support behind a total ban of engineered stone,” CFMEU national secretary Zach Smith said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Major retailers are confirming what the CFMEU has said from day one – this is an unnecessary product that is killing Australian workers.

“Businesses that once profited from the deaths of workers are now conceding they have lost any social licence to cash in on deadly engineered stone.”

Mr Smith urged all Australian governments to support a ban on the import, use and manufacture of engineered stone.

“While next month’s meeting of work health and safety ministers should be a formality, the CFMEU will not rest until a ban is 100 per cent locked in,” he said.

“I want to pay tribute to all the CFMEU members, including dust disease sufferers, who have stood up for the lives of workers.”

Cells taken from the lungs of a patient with silicosis, notice the speck of silica dust shining brightly

Workplace health and safety ministers last month released a Safe Work Australia report, which called for all engineered stone in Australia to be banned.

Federal Employment Minister Tony Burke said then the government would work with the states and territories on a “co-operative national response”, and would convene another meeting in the next two months to decide next steps.

Mr Burke the decision to ban the product was now with the states but he wanted to see it outlawed.

“I want as soon as possible for people to be safe when they go to work. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

“I don’t believe there’s any section of Australia that will look lightly at the reality of people losing their lives because they went to work.”

The silica dust from cutting the engineered stone benchtops can lead to the potentially deadly disease silicosis as well as lung cancer.

The report was commissioned after engineered stone, a popular material often used for kitchen benches and bathrooms, was linked to a surge in disease among tradespeople.