California Poised To Ban Quartz Countertops Over Deadly Lung Disease

California is moving toward banning the fabrication of human-made quartz, after years of workplace safety rules failed to stop what state officials have described as an “epidemic” of deadly lung disease among workers who cut and shape the material for countertops.

“This action is necessary in light of the continuing epidemic of silicosis that is causing disabling disease and death among California fabrication workers,” a petition now before the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board states. “The most effective approach to preventing occupational disease is elimination of hazardous products and substitution with safer and less toxic materials.”

Often confused with quartzite, a natural metamorphic rock, engineered quartz is a manufactured material made primarily from crushed quartz bound together with polymer resins. It surged in popularity beginning in the early 2000s because of its sleek appearance, durability, ease of care, and lower price relative to some natural stones.

It is now the most popular countertop material in the United States. But as engineered quartz spread through U.S. kitchens and bathrooms, cases of silicosis began climbing among the workers who make those countertops fit.

California alone now has confirmed 660 cases of engineered-stone silicosis and 35 deaths, according to a dashboard tracking the epidemic from the Occupational Health Branch of the state Department of Public Health.

If adopted, the prohibition would make the Golden State the first to effectively remove high-silica-engineered stone from countertop fabrication shops.

The epidemic behind America’s favorite countertop

Silicosis develops when a person inhales respirable crystalline silica, or RCS—tiny particles generated when materials containing silica are cut, ground, drilled, or sanded.

Once inhaled, those particles can become lodged deep in the lungs, triggering inflammation and irreversible scarring that make it difficult to breathe. The disease can be fatal, and severe cases can require a lung transplant.

Engineered quartz is made by combining crushed quartz with polymer resins, then compressing the mixture into hard, uniform slabs. (Getty Images)

Crystalline silica is found in other common countertop materials. But engineered quartz contains especially high concentrations, typically around 85% to 95% by weight. Granite, by comparison, contains just around 40%.

Regulators say engineered stone poses an additional hazard because of the composition and characteristics of the dust generated during fabrication.

The danger emerges during fabrication, when large slabs are shaped to fit around sinks, corners, and other features in a home. The process of cutting or sanding the material can release particles smaller than 10 micrometers across. A human hair, by comparison, is about 75 micrometers thick.

And that dust is coated in resin and other materials, raising the health risks, Dr. David Michaels, an epidemiologist who led the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from 2009 to 2017, told Congress earlier this year.

He compared the risk to a cigarette.

“A cigarette is produced by the factory. If it sits there on the table unused, it isn’t dangerous,” he said. “If you light it up and breathe what’s coming out of it, it kills you.”

Why California is moving now

It can take years of exposure to RCS to develop the disease and even longer for symptoms to appear—a lag that helps explain why California is only now seeing the full scale of an industry that expanded rapidly more than a decade ago.

The number of confirmed cases in the state grew from 52 cumulative cases identified through 2022 to 531 by early 2026—a roughly tenfold increase in about three years, according to an April memorandum from California OSHA.

In response, the state has already tried to stop that rise by regulating how the material is cut.

California adopted emergency rules beginning in late 2023 that restricted dry cutting and required wet methods, stronger respiratory protection, and other safeguards. Those protections were made permanent in 2025.

But state inspections show those requirements have been extraordinarily difficult to enforce.

Of 127 countertop fabrication shops whose inspections had been completed between late 2023 and February 2026, 120—or about 94%—were cited for safety violations, according to Cal/OSHA. Roughly 1 in 5 had conditions hazardous enough to trigger an immediate shutdown order.

The problem may go beyond shops simply breaking the rules.

Research cited by Cal/OSHA found that among workers who exclusively used wet fabrication methods designed to suppress silica dust, 51% still experienced exposures at or above OSHA’s permissible exposure limit.

“The combined approach of engineering controls, PPE, and enforcement have not led to a reduction in exposures,” Cal/OSHA concluded in its April evaluation.

The industry is also sprawling and fragmented, making regulation even more of a challenge.

Federal researchers estimated in 2026 that more than 1,500 California businesses may be involved in countertop fabrication or installation. Many are small operations, making oversight across the industry difficult.

And the workers developing silicosis also disproportionately come from a population with limited ability to push back against unsafe conditions.

Roughly 98% to 99% of affected workers are Latino men, many of them foreign-born, according to an April memorandum. Many have limited English proficiency, lack health insurance or union representation, and work in small fabrication shops. State officials have also raised concerns that immigration status can make workers less likely to report unsafe conditions or seek medical care.

Cal/OSHA has concluded that prohibiting work with engineered stone containing high levels of crystalline silica may be the only way to prevent new cases.

The industry fight shifts to the courts

As diagnoses and deaths have mounted, workers have turned to the courts.

In 2024, a Los Angeles jury awarded $52.4 million to a former stone fabricator in a lawsuit against a manufacturer, one of a growing number of cases seeking to hold engineered-stone companies responsible for workers’ illnesses.

Manufacturers, meanwhile, are pushing back against efforts to place liability on the product itself.

Cambria manufactures engineered quartz surfaces at its Minnesota facilities, where it says workers fabricate the material under controlled safety conditions. (The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images)

In January, representatives from Cambria, a family-owned Minnesota manufacturer of quartz surfaces, testified before Congress in support of legislation that would limit lawsuits against manufacturers and sellers for injuries stemming from fabrication at third-party facilities.

“The problem is the process, not the product,” Rebecca Shult, an attorney for Cambria, said in her testimony, blaming what she described as “illegal” fabrication shops that cut stone without adequate protections.

“The 1,000 Cambria fab shop employees have spent more than 10 million hours fabricating over 650,000 quartz slabs without a single reported case of occupational disease,” she said. “We only cut our own product. It’s exclusively quartz. This demonstrates that quartz can be fabricated safely.”

Michaels, the epidemiologist, disputed the premise that existing workplace rules provide sufficient protection—a particularly striking statement because he helped strengthen OSHA’s silica standard while running the agency.

“There were cases in California of workers with silicosis who were exposed under the [OSHA] standard,” he said. “That isn’t surprising to me because OSHA standards are not safe levels.”

For the industry, the financial stakes are substantial.

“The enormous resources required to defend against these lawsuits, coupled with the potential risk of nuclear verdicts, place an enormous burden on us,” Shult testified, saying Cambria was defending against roughly 400 lawsuits.

The global quartz-surface market was valued at nearly $12 billion in 2024 and is projected to exceed $16 billion by 2033, according to Grand View Research.