The debate around silicosis is a serious one for the stone fabrication industry but, for PWS and CEO Mark Stephenson, safety is rooted in responsibility, not regulation.
Silicosis. The single-word issue that has shaken the solid surface supply and fabrication industry into a long-overdue examination of health and safety practices. But for PWS this is a wake-up call for a sector that should be following its lead.
“As one of the major players in the worktop market, we’ve got a duty of care,” says CEO Mark Stephenson. “And that’s not just to our customers – it’s to our staff, to the industry, and to the public.”
PWS supplies worktops across all major channels from contract and retail to the big multiples but, unlike some smaller operators, they’ve been heavily investing in automated systems, water suppression, and dust extraction technologies for some time.
And, for Stephenson, this isn’t about ticking boxes, it’s about leading the charge for safer standards in an increasingly scrutinised part of the kitchen industry. As Stephenson notes, high-profile cases of silicosis, particularly in Australia where engineered stone has been banned, all stemmed from under-equipped workshops.
“Those tragic cases? They didn’t come from operations like ours,” he says. “They came from fabricators with no extraction, no suppression, no investment. And that’s entirely preventable.”
As the sensationalist press picks up the story – with predictably dramatic headlines from the Daily Mail like “trendy quartz worktops causing ‘epidemic’ of disease” – Stephenson is keen to push back with facts and context. “Handled correctly, these products are completely safe,” he says. “But the responsibility lies with the industry to do it properly, not with the end user.”
Simple solution
Walking around PWS’s site proves the point. Everything is automated, enclosed and extracted. It’s slick, clean and, most importantly, safe. The investment has been substantial, but Stephenson insists it pays off in more ways than one.
“Automation means we’re efficient and competitive,” he explains. “People assume that because we’re big and we’re doing everything right, we must be expensive. But actually, we can beat most quotes and deliver a higher standard.”
PWS has a proud family legacy, founded in 1909 by Percy Stephenson, Mark’s great-grandfather, and that means the investment in safety is about long-term resilience.
“There’s a lot of pride in what we do,” Stephenson says. “We’ve got family members across the business. We want everyone to go home safe at the end of the day.”
While the conversation around silicosis is growing louder, Stephenson believes the solution is simple: consolidate supply through the most compliant operators, and the risk evaporates.
“If this industry consolidated around five or six properly regulated fabricators, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” he says. “Until then, we’ll keep doing the right thing – and hopefully set an example others can follow.