Real cost of India's cheap stone

I'ez gonna change my yesterday's installed green marble to blue marble kitchen and bath today - them thar women and children need the labor excercise cause they is gots to eat - true freedumb in an economic model that don't make no lick of sense

Real cost of India's cheap stone
By Tom Heap BBC News, Bangalore
The global building boom and the fashion for smart interiors has created huge demand for natural stone.

In the past few years this has been fed by a booming export trade from countries where rock is plentiful and labour is cheap. India is among the most rapidly growing sources of granite, slate and sandstone.

But now questions are being asked about the cost to the environment and the human toll for workers.

Highly-polished kitchen worktops and gleaming stone cladding in the washroom were once the preserve of the very rich, but now, thanks to the exploitation of new sources, the price is plummeting.

In the UK, natural stone has been vigorously endorsed on gardening and interior design television programmes, the resulting appetite increasing granite imports from India to Britain eight-fold in the past five years.

Poor safety and many quarry workers are children
Our investigations into how the stone was being produced focused on Bangalore ....full text