Personal Protective Equipment Expert Article

In this article, certified industrial hygienist, Ron Schaible, CIH, discusses Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the workplace, with an emphasis on the importance of establishing and complying with appropriate PPE protocols.

Personal Protective Equipment

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is designed to protect workers from serious workplace injuries or illnesses resulting from contact with chemical, radiological, physical, electrical, mechanical, or other workplace hazards. Besides face shields, safety glasses, hard hats, and safety shoes, protective equipment includes a variety of devices and garments such as goggles, coveralls, gloves, vests, earplugs, and respirators.

PPE requirements vary by industry and according to materials handled. Employers and employees bear responsibility to ensure the proper usage of adequate PPE in the workplace. Employers must detect workplace hazards and make efforts to mitigate them. Employees must comply with workplace policies concerning PPE and report problems with the equipment to the employer.

Surveys of safety professionals consistently indicate failures to wear proper safety equipment while on the job. Given this, it is not surprising that compliance with PPE protocols is a significant concern in injury prevention programs.

Importance of Proper Selection

The Occupational Safety and Health Act’s (OSHA) general PPE requirements mandate that employers conduct a hazard assessment to determine hazards that are present, what PPE is proper for those hazards, and train and require workers to wear and maintain it in a sanitary and reliable condition.

While PPE is important to workplace safety, its use is subordinate to the implementation of feasible engineering controls and administrative controls to eliminate or minimize the hazard. Requiring the use of PPE alone may expose workers to the unmitigated hazard. Injury may occur if the PPE is not selected, worn or maintained properly, or if the PPE fails.

Standards of Care

In addition to OSHA’s PPE requirements, numerous other standards of care exist. The American National Standards Institute, Inc. (ANSI), ASTM International (ASTM), and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), among others, publish standards for the manufacture, testing and use of PPE.

DID YOU KNOW?

A mistake, such as dropped tools, equipment and material from an elevated location can produce fatal results for those working below! Consider the following:

1. Falling objects accelerate at the rate of ~32 feet per second per second.
2. A falling object hits with an impact equal to its weight times the falling distance.

Example: Suppose a construction worker drops a tool from a platform 50 feet up. Below him, several other men are working. One employee glances up, sees the falling object—the wrench—and gives a warning yell. By the time it registers on his vision, its only 3 to 4 feet above his head…and, it’s traveling about 48 feet per second. NO ONE can move fast enough to escape a situation like this. A stronger lesson in the value of a hard hat could hardly be found.

Estimated Force of Dropped Objects

Featured Expert

Ronald D. Schaible, CIH, CSP, CPE

Industrial Hygienist, Workplace Safety & Ergonomics Expert

How do you match the experience of an individual who developed and deployed the global health and safety management system for a Fortune 500 company with 250 locations in 50 countries? Or one that has… read more.