Eighteen months into the engineered stone ban, there is still no agreed test for engineered stone

The prohibition on manufacturing, supplying, processing and installing engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs took effect on 1 July 2024, after WHS ministers agreed to it unanimously in December 2023. The reason was blunt. The review cites a Victorian analysis finding that of 536 workers' compensation claims for silicosis in Victoria between 1991 and 2022, 482 of them, 90 per cent, were lodged in the last seven years of that window, and that 95 per cent of recently diagnosed Victorian silicosis patients had primarily worked with engineered stone. The disease curve tracked one product.

The ban is a stack of dates, and most of them are not 1 July 2024

• December 2023: WHS ministers agree to prohibit engineered stone.
• 1 July 2024: the domestic prohibition commences, with jurisdictional transition arrangements running to 31 December 2024.
• 1 September 2024: a broader change most SMEs missed. Stronger regulation of all crystalline silica substances commences, covering any material with at least 1 per cent crystalline silica by weight, not just engineered stone. A revised model notification form for high-risk silica work arrived with it.
• 1 January 2025: engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs become prohibited imports under the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations 1956.
• 4 December 2025: Safe Work Australia publishes the 85-page review: working as intended, 11 findings, 6 recommendations.
• Mid-2026: per the review's implementation plan, the revised notification form is due to be adopted by all jurisdictions. That deadline is now.

What still binds every duty holder

The compliance number did not move: for work involving any product containing at least 1 per cent crystalline silica, the workplace exposure standard for respirable crystalline silica remains an eight-hour time-weighted average of 0.05 mg/m³, as set in Safe Work Australia's workplace exposure standards and restated in the review. The crystalline silica substance rules from September 2024 apply to natural stone, concrete, brick and tile work as much as to the banned product. A demolition or renovation crew cutting a pre-ban benchtop is doing regulated silica work today.

Nobody can yet say, to a standard, what "engineered stone" is

Recommendation 1 of the review asks Safe Work Australia to develop "urgently needed" nationally recognised testing criteria for determining whether a product is engineered stone, because multiple laboratory techniques are needed to establish crystalline silica content and resin binders, and no agreed method exists. Until that lands, the boundary of the ban is being policed product by product. For a duty holder buying slabs, the practical consequence is that a supplier's classification is an assertion, not a certificate.

"Silica-free" is a marketing claim, not a verified one

The replacement market moved fast: sintered stone, porcelain, natural stone and new products advertising less than 1 per cent crystalline silica, often using amorphous silica such as recycled glass. The review is careful here, and duty holders should be too. Finding 10 calls for independent research to characterise what is actually in the alternatives, with particular attention on porcelain, sintered stone and products marketed as low or no silica, and notes evidence on amorphous silica's toxicity is inconclusive. Natural stone spans a huge range on its own: the review cites granite at roughly 40 per cent crystalline silica and sandstone at 60 to 70 per cent, both above engineered stone's replacement products and both legal. Three of the six recommendations are about forcing accurate labelling and safety data sheets across engineered stone and the alternatives, including consumer-protection engagement on marketing claims. The control that matters on the shop floor is unchanged: treat cutting, grinding and polishing of any stone-like product as silica work unless a safety data sheet proves otherwise.

The legacy benchtop trap the review wants fixed

If a pre-ban engineered stone benchtop is uninstalled, current model WHS Regulations 529E and 529F do not allow it to be reinstalled, which the review names an unintended consequence of the prohibition. Recommendation 5 proposes amending both regulations to permit reinstallation of legacy stone. Until a jurisdiction actually amends its regulations, a kitchen renovation that lifts and relays an existing slab sits in a gap the national policy body has flagged but not yet closed. Watch your own regulator before quoting that job.

What to watch next

Two dates matter from here: the mid-2026 all-jurisdictions adoption of the revised notification form, due about now, and any draft amendment text for regulations 529E and 529F. Both will surface first through Safe Work Australia's news feed and then jurisdiction by jurisdiction. The ban was the start of this file, not the end of it.