The Natural Stone Specialist

Keep taking the tablets – 3 May 2012

I see the American trade association, the Marble Institute of America, has launched an App called iStone for smartphones and tablets – and very nice it looks, too.

They say it contains details of 1,000 natural stones (I haven't counted) and was created by Stdiomarmo, the Italian company that specialises in making websites and Apps especially for the stone industry – imagine that! You can buy it from the Apple Store for a UK price of £10.49.

Whether it will be a help or a hindrance to designers and stone processors in this country is a moot point. If a customer says they want this or that stone, pointing to one on their iPad, irrespective of its intended use, there could be some explaining to be done about the nature of stone and the differences between one stone and another. Sourcing and pricing might also be interesting. But maybe it will inspire people to choose stone for their projects. Anything that gets stone out there in front of people can only be for the good. Then it is up to the industry supplying it to make the most of the opportunity that offers.

 

Working together? Not quite – 27 April 2012

In this month's issue of Natural Stone Specialist there is a report on what stone companies are doing to demonstrate the sustainability of stone. And what they are doing is a whole diversity of things. Some have chosen Carbon Footprinting with PAS 2050 and the Carbon Trust. Some have taken the BES 6001 route. For others it is 9001. Some have chosen ISO 14001. 

Something that is supposed to provide clarity for those specifying building materials in general so they can compare the environmental impact of each has turned into a scrabble for superiority among the myriad vested interests.

I suppose it is not surprising that sustainability has turned into a marketing exercise and those supplying standards and consultation are competing to provide customers with services that make their products look best. And are charging thousands of pounds for doing so. It is turning into farce.

The construction industry in general could do with some guidance. But when even a sector as small as stone cannot get together and agree on which direction to proceed, there is not much hope for the construction industry in general.

What started out with all the best intentions of saving the world is rapidly turning into a free-for-all, the greatest beneficiaries of which are the consultants and standards producers.

But perhaps that is a little unfair. At least those who are embarking on achieving standards are identifying areas in their own businesses where they can save energy. It turns out to be a matter of self-interest as well as altruism, because proving your product is green is not just a matter of increasing (or maintaining) sales. Being green means identifying areas where less energy can be used and that means lower energy bills. 

It's win-win all round, although I still think more customers would benefit if the construction industry could get together, decide on one standard, then stick to it, so customers really can compare the products, which was supposed to be the reason for the standards in the first place. But that is clearly asking too much.

 

What difference does a double dip make? – 27 April 2012

What a lot of rubbish is being talked about the double dip recession. Does it matter whether economic output fell 0.2% or grew 0.2%? In any case, it could be either. Such a small change is within the margin or error for the data and the figures are always amended in future months. The future revisions could just as easily show there was minor growth rather than minor shrinkage. It is just another opportunity for daft headlines.

One thing the West has got to get used to is that a big chunk of the World's economy has moved East. You cannot send all your industry over to another part of the world without feeling the economic consequences of that. It is not just jobs that are exported, it is also capital. The banking system can take the strain for a while, but eventually there has to be a seismic adjustment – and we are experiencing it in spades thanks to the bankers' belief that they could continue to lend the same money many times over by selling the debt back to themselves as derivatives.

Neither they nor the rest of us understood what they were doing. Now we do, it seems absurd, with the benefit of hindsight. The greedy bankers.

 

All the fun of the funeral – 12 January 2012

Happy New Year. My return to the office was brightened by a bright pink brochure sent to me by snailmail from Lyon in France announcing this year's Funexpo.

Apparently Funexpo has been going for 30 years, although I have never come across it before. What sort of fun can it be, I wondered. It turned out to be a funeral exhibition, as I'm sure many in the memorial side of the business will know. It's a name you can't help feeling should have been run-by someone who could speak English all those years ago.

Not that 'fun' is a word that should necessarily be divorced from the death care industry – not, at least, its exhibitions. I have attended the Funeraire exhibition in Paris and the National Funeral Exhibition at Stoneleigh in the UK many times and have had a lot of fun at both of them.

Still, you can't help questioning the wisdom of calling a death care exhibition Funexpo, can you? Even some of the architectural side of the stone industry get a little touchy about the memorial side.

 

Happy Christmas – 13 December 2011

I know I have been remiss in entering blogs on this page this year. I have a New Year's Resolution to do better next year – although it might go the way of most New Year's Resolutions.

Life is not getting any easier for any of us – costs are inflating but nobody wants to pay any more for goods and services, which is squeezing margins. Next year shows no promise of being any better, although some of the inflationary pressures (such as the increase in VAT) will fall out of the equation. The banks have been given billions of pounds from quantative easing but precious little of it seems to be making its way out into the wider economy. Stone Specialist readers have been investing in efficiency-improving new machinery where they can finance the investment, but it has been cautious and is likely to remain so. Let's not even think about the possibility of the Euro collapsing.

This looks like one of those seismic economic events that happen now and again as the pressures of the movement of capital suddenly break out into the economy in general. In the 1970s it was Opec that the money was flowing into and it led to three-day working weeks, power cuts and even the issuing of petrol coupons (although they were never used) in the UK. This time capital has flowed into the Far East. The resolution will be different because there are vastly more poeple in the Far East than there were in the Middle East. The oil sheikhs were able to invest in the West and spend their money extravagantly on life's little luxuries. The Chinese and Indians are more likley to spend the money in their home territories because they have more people who want a slice of it. That will make their consumers richer, which will probably be accompanied by more economic liberalism that should boost demand across the world in due course.

When that will happen we can all speculate. Governments around the world will have to negotiate agreements to ease trade and investment, which is always hampered by short-term parochial concerns that almost inevitably lead to some level of protectionism, even though that makes even their own countries poorer than they would otherwise be. Nevertheless, it makes the politicians appear strong and decisive by standing up to other governments. Even populations that don't get to vote for their leaders tend to like that.

It all seems rather remote from the company repairing the stonework of the local church or fitting a few granite worktops, but they are paying the price. Around 300 stone companies have gone bust since the crisis started biting at the end of 2008. The first to go were the exposed recent start-ups, many in the worktop market. They had used their homes as collateral to finance investment in machinery. That machinery had to work to pay off the loan. When it stopped working there was nothing else to pay for it. Even larger companies cannot hold out for ever and this year saw the collapse of two of the largest in the stone and conservation sector – Stonewest and Linford. Like other companies who had called in the Administrators, Stonewest were not gone for long, while Linford's assets seemed to be disposed of with exceptional haste.

But enough of the gloom. Even in these times there are companies that are enjoying good times as some of the capacity leaves the market. I hope you are among them… or, at least, weathering the storm. I wish you a happy Christmas and let us hope 2012 will bring encouraging opportunities for all of us.

 

Government will create a directory – 20 July 2011

I see the government is proposing to establish a directory of contractors – or as it calls it a name-and-shame list of contractors who do not pay their subbies within 30 days.

No, don't laugh. Francis Maude, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, announced the proposal yesterday (19 July). He said: “Prompt payment is crucial to smaller companies. The government has an excellent record on paying our bills quickly" – no, please, no more laughing – "and we expect our suppliers to do the same and pay sub-contractors well within the 30 day limit.

“When work has been done, especially by an SME, it is just inexcusable not to pay up quickly for that service.

“We will be keeping a close eye on how the big suppliers choose to pay their sub-contractors and we won’t shy away from naming and shaming those that we find have failed to pay promptly.”

So, as I say, that will be just about everyone in the construction industry who works for the government. I don't know about being shamed, contractors will want to be on the list because it will be a de facto directory of everyone in the industry.

 

That's not art, just a block of Portland – 27 June 2011

I just thought I would share with you a photo I took last weekend at Compton Verney, in Warwickshire.

Compton Verney is a 500-year-old country house that is open to the public. It has an interesting collection of folk art.

Outside is this block of Portland limestone. As you can see from the photo, it is an untitled artwork by John Frankland.

Now, admitedly it does look like a big block of Portland stone – and why not; it is. But since Marcel Duchamp turned a urinal on its back and called it art, apparently anything can be art, so why not a block of Portland limestone?

Anyway, there is a notice asking people not to climb on the stone. It probably has more to do with risk insurance than protecting the block of stone, which it would have been fun to have as an interactive piece that people were encouraged to climb on. But, of course, some incompetent or claim merchant would fall off, hurt themselves and want compensation.

In any case, in England rules only apply to everyone else, don't they, so I'm sure there will be plenty more people like this family who encourage their children to play on what they can only see as a block of stone. Rather like the king's new clothes, isn't it.

 

Only six deaths in Zimbabwe granite quarry, so that's all right then       – 24 June 2011

I have been emailed today a connection to the website of a newspaper called News Day in Zimbabwe. On it there is a report of today's date about the production of Zimbabwe Black Granite from a quarry there. Zimbabwe Black is popular in Britain as kitchen worktops and for memorials. A company is accused of poor health & safety standards that have lead to the deaths of 66 workers. The Managing Director says this is rubbish – only six workers have died.

It seems astonishing that apparently no records have been kept to verify the numbers killed, and in the newspaper report (reproduced below) there seems to be more concern about the effects that working in the quarry has on the men's love lives than the fact that working there is killing them.

I reproduce the report in full below. The website address is www.newsday.co.zw

The report from News Day:

Senators from the Parliamentary Thematic Committee on Indigenisation and Empowerment on Thursday quizzed one of the companies mining granite in Mutoko over reports of the death of 66 workers.

Managing director of Natural Stone Export Company David Van Breda was asked to explain the working conditions and how the company ploughed back into the community in which it extracted granite.

The committee, chaired by Chimanimani Senator Monica Mutsvangwa, was told among a litany of other accusations that during a visit to Mutoko by the committee, the community had disclosed that they were underpaid and made to use heavy machinery, which resulted in some of the workers breaking their backs.

Van Breda however refuted the allegations and said the people that had spoken to the committee members comprised of former workers who were disgruntled because they had been fired and had lied about the mining company.

Non-constituency Senator Morgan Komichi said during a tour by the committee in Mutoko, some of the workers alleged they incurred back injuries whilst using heavy machinery, a situation which had rendered them useless even in their bedrooms.

“Many young men told the committee that they were now spineless and dysfunctional in their bedrooms. Their womenfolk also confirmed this was true,” said Komichi.

Van Breda denied the allegations and said only six employees had been recorded dead due to work-related accidents and said his company was involved in a lot of community help projects and had taken safety measures to ensure employees were not harmed. He said last year the natural stone turnover for his company was a gross of $7 million.

Speaking to the same committee yesterday, the chief executive officer of the Mutoko Rural District Council, Peter Sigauke, said the multinational companies extracting black granite were not giving back to the community.

He said as a result, the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development and the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) would soon introduce weigh-bridges in Mutoko to ensure black granite did not leave the country without certificates.

“The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development and the MMCZ wants to put a weigh-bridge in Mutoko so that no stone will leave Zimbabwe without a certificate,” said Sigauke.

“There has been bad blood between the rural district council and the quarry operators in that they want to pay only 40 cents per tonne, whereas the council demands that they pay $1 per tonne, which translates to $1 000 per unit,” he said.

Sigauke castigated quarry operators mining in the area and said they were not providing meaningful developmental assistance to the Mutoko community and never consulted the rural district council whenever they wanted to embark on corporate social responsibility programmes.

 

An excellent return to ExCeL – 18 March 2011

It was good to be back at the Natural Stone Show at ExCeL London, which finished its three-day run yesterday. The Show is the biggest gathering of the stone industry and its customers the UK ever sees. It is a good-natured affair where a lot of old friends are reunited and new friendships forged.

Three days were just not enough to get around to see everyone, so my apologies to all those stands I missed. Getting anywhere was a struggle because there were so many people from the industry visiting the show I could hardly move a foot before another hand was outstretched to greet me. Very pleasant it was and good to meet everyone again.

I took about 500 photographs during the exhibition and they aren't all going to see the light of day, so, again, my apologies to everyone who doesn't get a mention in the review in the March edition of the magazine. Including everyone would fill several issues, so I have had to be selective and nobody else is going to approve of my selection, especially if it excludes them. I have tried to present a reasonable overview of what was on show.

The Show had been growing ever since it was launched at Wembley in 1995. Then came the economic collapse at the end of the summer of 2008. Until then, the stone sector in general had seen considerable growth that had accommodated a lot of new companies, especially (but not only) in worktops and hard landscaping. Latterly the tile sector has also encompassed stone and there are not many tile shops these days that don't have a good selection of stone tiles in a variety of sizes and finishes.

When the economy hit the buffers in September 2008 the resulting crash had its casualties and the response of the banks caused more as finance was withdrawn. But it was evident at the Natural Stone Show this week that confidence is returning to the market, albeit with some element of caution and nervousness.

The Stone Show was good. I have to declare an interest because the exhibition is run by the same company that publishes Natural Stone Specialist magazine, but I think I am being as impartial as I can be when I say it was a good show.

It didn't break any records, but it had well over 200 exhibitors and although the attendance figures have yet to be de-duplicated and analysed to produce some statistics about who came, on the face of it, the overall figure does not seem to be too far adrift from last time's record-breaker. The actual figures will be published on the Stone Show website (www.stoneshow.co.uk) in due course.

You know before a show opens who is exhibiting, but you can never be sure who precisely will visit, even though five or six thousand potential visitors pre-register for the natural Stone Show (as they did again this time). It is encouraging that the number of visitors who actually made the journey to ExCeL is so high (unless a lot of the same people repeatedly came and went, it will be about 5,000). It is a good sign for the stone industry and construction in general – especially as reports by exhibitors of high levels of enquiries and sales suggest many visitors were prepared to put some of their hard-earned profit back into their businesses.

Nobody is expecting this to be a boom year, but the economy might have reached the bottom of the cycle… and that only leaves one way to go.

 

Looking forward to the Natural Stone Show – 15-17 March 2011

Everything is all set for the Natural Stone Show, taking place at ExCeL London from 15 to 17 March. It looks like it's going to be another spectacular in spite of the economy. It's not going to be a record-breaker this time, but it is only returning to the size it was two shows ago, which is about what the rest of the industry has done.

You can see who is exhibiting on the Natural Stone Show website, which you can go to now, if you like, by clicking here.

Economic downturns are always uncomfortable and will see the demise of some of those attracted into the market by the good times – especially, but not only, those who entered it late and had not had enough of the good times to pay off the investment of entry.

It is a bit Darwinian, but it does come down to the survival of the fittest and with the weakest leaving the market for whatever reason, those left can earn a good living as long as they can evolve quick enough to make the most of the opportunities that are out there.

This is not a time for sitting back and waiting to see what happens. Fortune favours the brave. Those who can spot new opportunities will emerge from the recession in the best state to benefit from the upturn.

To spot new opportunities you need to expose yourself to as many opportunities as possible to identify them, and exhibitions always do present new opportunities and give you the chance to see them at one time in one place, saving you time and travel.

Investment in machinery picked up again last year and many of the companies I have spoken to are seeing an improvement in workload. Spotting the start of the recovery and gearing up for it is every bit as important as cutting back quickly at the first signs of recession.

And now is a good time to invest in productivity-improving equipment if you are going to because as demand picks up, so will prices. The machinery makers on the Continent are no different to anyone else and have cut prices just to cover their overheads.

The banks are doing their best to stifle any recovery by refusing to make money available, but there are other avenues of finance at no more – and sometimes less – than the banks want to charge for it. Opportunities come in many forms.

There will be acres of stone and stone products to be seen at the Natural Stone Show, all of which have the potential to open new avenues for you.

If you have survived the recession you are already on the next step of the evolutionary tree. Now's the time to branch out.

 

Feeding into the tariff at Ecobuild – 2 March

Before my visit to Ecobuild at ExCeL this week I hadn't realised there were so many companies selling photovoltaic (PV) cells for roofs. What you can deduce from that is that the government's Feed-in tariff, which pays people to feed electricity into the National Grid, is providing a rapid return on the investment in PV cells.

If the number of companies selling PV cells is any indication, a lot of people have decided to use their roofs to produce electricity. That means the Feed-in tariff is going to cost the government more than it had budgeted for, which in turn means, whatever it promised, there will eventually be a U-turn and the tariff will be reduced – and somehow or another it will be the fault of the previous administration, as is the way of politics.

By the way: You would think at least one of the companies supplying the PV cells for roofs would have tried to make them look a bit more attractive, because at the moment the biggest drawback seems to be they are so damn ugly.

The point of getting us all to become electricity generators feeding into the National Grid is that apparently electricity demand will exceed supply in the next 10-20 years. You might think the answer would be to build another power station or two, but, under the guise of going green, the government is looking for low carbon alternatives to building power stations – I say 'under the guise' because I understand the Feed-in tariff is anticipated to be less expensive, at least in the short-term, than building new power stations.

It is an interesting state of affairs, though. One thing capitalism has been exceedingly good at is supplying what markets demand. All capitalist recessions have resulted from a lack of demand, not supply. That looks as if it might just be changing. Some suggest that the world has reached the limit of its resources. Here in the UK, the aggregates suppliers continue to be unable to maintain their reserves levels, even with demand at historically low levels.

As we head towards a world population peak of 9billion in around 2050, price rises in food, other commodities and energy already look remarkably like a reflection of pre-capitalism supply shortages. Capitalism's response to price rises should be an increase in supply, but if that's coming it's taking its time.

Although few commentators seem to have noticed it (or, at least, haven't mentioned it), the current disquiet in North Africa is associated with a 50% increase in world grain prices that has been reflected in the price of bread. In the West, we might not even notice. In North Africa, where even the lower middle classes spend a third of their income on food, an increase in grain prices can put them on the bread line – literally. Naturally, they blame their governments and when there is no democracy to remove the governments they take direct action to make the change.

It all seems a long way from the day-to-day life of the stonemason, but even here it begins to feel a little uncomfortable as prices rise and margins tighten.

 

Banks to make 15% increase in loans to small businesses? Of course they will – 14 February 2011

The banks say demand for loans is down – not entirely unexpectedly when so many companies have gone out of business. They say four out of five funding applications are already being accepted. So how do they intend to increase lending to small firms by 15%, as they have said they will?

They will do it in the same way as they have come up with the figures above: by being extremely selective about the data they use.

I talk to a lot of companies and almost everyone has a banking tale to tell of overdraughts and other facilities suddenly withdrawn, huge ‘arrangement’ charges for tiny services and even larger penalties for minimal infringements.

Banks are extremely adept at levering money out of legitimate businesses by suddenly finding it necessary to add huge charges – if a company in the construction industry did it they would be appearing on ‘Rogue Traders’ and getting a visit from Trading Standards.

And there is no alternative. Successive governments have colluded with bankers to make it impossible to trade without a bank.

Neither is there any real competition. Again, if construction companies had such similar operations and pricing structures they would be subjected to cartel investigations.

Governments are held to ransom by the banks’ threats to decamp abroad – a largely empty threat because they will not leave the lucrative financial centre of The City that offers them such easy pickings.

What banks could do with is some real competition.

 

Have you heard who's going bust? – 18 October 2010

Have you heard who's in trouble now? Of course you have. So have I and everyone else in the industry. Speculation abounds. Some of it might even be about you. Some might have an element of truth to it. Some might not.

I suppose it's natural when business gets tough that companies are going to start speculating about the demise of their competitors. It is worrying, though, because it is an indication of a lack of confidence and when confidence goes out of a market so does money. The press helped sap confidence two-and-a-half years ago at the start of the recession, now the markets are doing the work for themselves by this constant speculation.

No doubt more companies will be calling in the Administrators and Receivers – but the more sepculation there is about who it will be the greater reluctance there will be to engage companies to carry out work.

Times are tough and are going to stay tough for a while yet. It might be an idea not to do anything to make it tougher than it already is.

Inspiration in Verona – 4 October 2010

Once again there was plenty of inspiration to be drawn from the exhibits in Verona. This was the fourth year that the Verona Fiere organisers of the Marmomacc exhibition had incorporated a 'Marmomacc meets Design' element to the show, which emphasises Italy's response to competition from cheap stonework, largely from the Far East. They cannot compete with the price so they are competing on design. The machinery people are taking a similar approach, keeping ahead with technology and features that add value to the stone processing equipment they offer. The picture here is from the Lithos stand, showing the interesting effects that can be achieved by integrating stone finishes with innovative lighting. Not cheap. But that's the point. And who buys interior design on price alone?

A good time in York – 16 August 2010

I spent a pleasant day in the sunshine in York yesterday at the carving festival there hosted by the masons of the Minster. There were 74 masons and carvers from all over the world taking part in the festival (Pippa Unwin of Mewstone Masonry, pictured on the right carving a woodpecker in Ancaster limestone, among them) and about 15,000 people came to watch them during the two days that they worked. At the end of the event, the pieces carved during it were auctioned off for charity. There will be more pictures and a report in the September issue of NSS.

 

 

Time to address ethical issues – 14 April 2010

Building magazine has this week devoted three pages to 'exposing' the use of children in the stone industry in India, often effectively as bonded labour paying off family debts even though bonded labour has been outlawed. They have picked up the campaign that Marshalls have been running and developed it with the Ethical Trading Initiative. They use pictures that Marshalls first used several years ago in their brochures. A few months ago Marshalls were involved when ITV News featured the subject. The Telegraph newspaper covered it in December. There has been a lot of other media coverage. It is an issue that is not going away. I was interviewed for a Radio Four programme a few years ago and had to admit the industry was not demanding or pursuing an ethical trading mark to help consumers make decisions.

It is an important issue. A lot of the stone used in the UK comes from China and India and other countries in the Far East whose human rights records are not entirely unblemished. It is usually India that is quoted when child labour is involved, but some say children also work in the stone industry in China, as well as other countries. Some will say it is the employment of children that is keeping prices down. And, of course, the cost of labour in production does effect the price of finished products.

It is impossible to condone the employment of children in quarries or stone processing factories, just as it is impossible to condone their 12-hours-a-day employment in some of the clothing factories that produce most of the shirts, trousers and suits we are all wearing, or in the factories producing any of the myriad other products we all enjoy buying cheaper than we would be able to if they were made in the UK or other European states.

Some people point out it was unethical to put children into coal mines for 14 hours a day to open and close fire doors, or to send them shimmying up chimneys or crawling under working machinery as they did during the UK's industrialisation. All over Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries children were used for the most applling and dangerous work. But if Europe's use of child labour then is justification for the Far East's use of child labour now, should we also accept slavery?

India is an emerging superpower whose companies offer their goods and services for sale in an international market. Western governments will not risk a trade war with such an important partner by banning their products (although America is threatening it), so if one importer stops buying the goods someone else will take over and there will always be plenty of customers whose purchasing decisions will be based on price. While customers buy on price – and Indian sandstone paving can be a third of the price of British sandstone paving – suppliers who will not source on price will go out of business.

One importer of Indian sandstone told me he had been told by his suppliers that his shirt was more likey to have been produced by children than the stone he was buying because children were not strong enough to work in quarries or stone processing factories. Another importer warned of the danger of taking an imperialist view of ethical trading as in India it was more common for the whole family to be working together. Others suggest that India needs to trade to be able to afford to take children out of industry and put them into schools. Yet another said that while they might have personal qualms about it, what could they do in a competitive market? These comments have been rounded on and condemned by others in the stone industry who do not import stone – and even some who do but try to ensure it is ethically sourced. It is a difficult issue. You can say it is wrong and refuse to be involved, but you cannot ensure everyone else does the same.

The publicity the issue is gaining might be a solution. Perhaps it can change attitudes so we are all prepared to pay more for the products we buy to ensure children are not involved in their production. If nobody buys the products they will not be imported, so making customers aware of the problem is no bad thing and leaves it open to companies to make a virtue of sourcing their products ethically, as Marshalls and one or two others have done with the stone they import from India.

The danger is that all stone gets tarred with the same brush and customers turn to conrete products. That would be the worst possible outcome because the manufacture of concrete is considerably more environmentally damaging in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and local lorry movements than the relatively benign extraction of natural stone.

By the way, the United Nations International Labour Organisation's Minimum Age Convention C138 is used by the Ethical Trade Initiative to determine what constitute's a child. It says the working age should not be less than the country's minimum age for completing compulsory schooling and in no event less than 15 (14 in limited circumstances in less developed countries).

 

This time they are all affordable – 23 February 2010

The Government has now set aside another £500million to build 8,000 homes, and this time they will all be affordable, according to Housing Minister John Healey (see my comments on eco-homes of 9 February below). This takes the government funding for housebuilding up to £3.3billion since June last year.

 

What are bosses worth? – 19 February 2010

On 21 December I asked what employees are worth, and concluded the answer was 'not much', judging by the level of fines on employers whose actions resulted in employees dieing. Well, it seems if you kill your boss the penalties can be even less, if a case in Derbyshire is anything go by.

South Derbyshire Magistrates' Court heard a case this month (February) where a farm worker reversed a tractor over his employer, leaving him with injuries from which he later died. The court fined the tractor driver £450 with £1,000 costs.

The court heard from the HSE, prosecuting, that a 4.5m long skid mark indicated the farm worker had been driving too fast in spite of his restricted visibility in the farmyard and previous warnings about his speed.

 

Eco-homes are unaffordable – 9 February 2010

The government has set aside £60million to build 600 new 'eco show homes' to the most stringent environmental standards. Unfortunately, according to the government's announcement, "Nearly a third of these homes will be affordable". So presumably more than two-thirds will not be affordable and will remain empty. That doesn't sound very ecologically friendly, does it!

Maybe it is time we stopped using the stupid euphemism 'affordable' when we mean lower price housing. After all, we probably all know of houses valued at £1million or a lot more that have recently been bought, so clearly they are affordable.

 

Respirable Silica is killing stonemasons – 16 March 2009

Respirable Crystalline Silica – the dust that is produced when working stone – is killing stonemasons. Yet the industry has done practically nothing to reduce the exposure of masons to it since companies were visited by Health & Safety Exuctive inspectors between 1992 and 1995.

That's the conclusion of the Silica Baseline Survey published (at last) by the Health & Safety Executive, who say the delay is the result of someone leaving and someone else having to take over the work. It is a hefty report. You can download it from the website www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr689.htm, which you can reach by clicking here. The main body is 70 pages and Annex 3 that covers the stone industry in particular runs to 98 pages. A lot of people are going to get no further than the executive summaries, which rather downplay what the report itself finds.

The report did not just cover the stone industry, but also brick making, quarrying and construction in general. The other sectors had made improvements. Stonemasonry hadn't. Previous estimates of the number of masons exposed could have been underestimated, says the report, and stonemasons could be the highest at-risk group from the effects of breathing Respirable Crystalline Silica (RCS).

Water walls and dust extraction units might have been installed at some masonry works, but they often don't reduce the level of RCS in the air to below the legal limit 0.1mg/m3. When the level dropped from 0.3 to 0.1mg/m3 in 2006, the HSE said the change would prevent 185 premature deaths. Maybe it would if it were achieved. But that only reduces the number of deaths – and by less than half. It does not eliminate them.

The only way to be sure stonemasons are safe is to stop the dust getting into their lungs, which requires some serious breathing apparatus such as positive air pressure masks. And don't forget the risks of passive masonry. If the dust is in the air, you can breath it whether you are creating it or not. Even wet working does not eliminate dust because it can hang in the air in water particles just as it can as dry particles. And just about all stone, even limestone and marble, contain some level of silica. RCS in masonry workshops normally comes from quartz, the most common crystal in the Earth's crust. There is a lot of it in granite and even more of it in engineered quartz, and when they are cut – however they are cut – RCS enters the air at levels normally above the legal limit.

The risk of RCS tends to be underplayed because it is accumulative. It does not necessarily make you feel ill after a day's work in a dusty atmosphere, in spite of the cough. It could be years later that the effects are felt. Just as with smoking. And, just as with smoking, someone will always know a mason who lived to be 90 in spite of breathing vast quantities of RCS every day of his life. Those who died tend to be forgotten.

The Silica Baseline Survey says that "comprehensive enforcement of the 2006 Workplace Exposure Limit would be likely to have a major impact on the [stone] industry". In other words, a few more prosecutions like those of Dunhouse and Border Stone in 2007 might focus the industry's collective mind.

 

Ecoissues – 12 March 2009

It was good to see stone getting out there with its ecological message at the EcoBuild exhibition in Earls Court last week, although not so good to see a concrete product in the Stone Zone under the Stone Federation banner. There were eight companies in the Zone, two of them (Realstone and Stoneville) Federation members.

The concrete paving being exhibited in the Zone was made in Germany under the name of HanseBeton and is being sold in the UK by R2 Paving Solutions. They were in the Stone Zone, Director Richard Featley told me, because they had been offered a particularly good last minute price to take the last bit of space.

I asked one of the stone companies in the Stone Zone what their ecology message was and they told me they didn't know, they just wanted to get their imported stone in front of the people who were visiting the exhibition. In contrast, R2 had a very clear ecology message - a zero carbon product. How can concrete paving have a zero carbon footprint when cement produces so much CO2 in its manufacture? Richard says it is because the Germans trade Carbon Credits to offset the CO2 produced in the manufacture of the paving.

In fact, he said, trading Carbon Credits even offset the Carbon dioxide produced in transporting the product from Germany to the UK, which was how they were able to claim they were selling a zero carbon product.

Not only that, but they used recycled material. Not 0.5% of it like some of their competitiors just to be able to claim to be using recycled material (R2 say), but as much as 20% of it in their paving thanks to "twin part technology". That means the base is made from a concrete that uses recycled aggregate while the surface is made from virgin aggregates so it looks good.

I wondered if it couldn't be made in the UK to avoid the carbon associated with the transportation. Richard said it could, but "unless you use something other than an English workforce to produce it, you're not going to get the quality". He accepted that that was a terrible indictment of English manufacture but said he did not know of one company in England that was making paving to the quality of the German material.

There is a little bit or argey-bargey going on between manufacturers about what exactly constitutes a 'green' product. At the moment, concrete paving producers are working hard to claim their products are 'greener' than natural stone products. And they are beginning to take some of the ecological high ground from stone without much of an answer from the stone companies, who know their product is green but are taking their time to come up with figures to argue their case following some disappointing results in the BRE Green Guide published on-line last year.

The trouble is, there is no general consensus of opinion about how to measure 'greenness' and possibly only a limited belief by manufacturers from all sectors of industry that it makes the slightest difference. So, without actually changing anything, companies are claiming to be ecologically friendly. It's called Greenwash. It echoes the whole issue of global warming, where there's so much hot air about the subject it must be making its own contribution to the problem without actually reaching any consensus for action.

Marshalls have produced a brochure called Halt the Greenwash. They criticise other companies for not verifying the claims they make, but muddy the waters by mixing up environmental issues with social issues of child and bonded labour (sometimes the same thing).

As with global warming in general, all the noise makes it hard to hear the message. And without clear guidance there is a tendency to carry on just as before, even if the marketing message has changed. Of course, some argue that is the best course of action anyway.