Advantage
of wearing PPE at work
Making the workplace safe includes providing instructions,
procedures, training and supervision to encourage people to work safely and
responsibly.
Even where engineering controls and safe systems of work
have been applied, some hazards might remain. These include injuries to:
the lungs, eg from breathing in
contaminated air
the head and feet, eg from falling
materials
the eyes, eg from flying particles
or splashes of corrosive liquids
the skin, eg from contact with corrosive
materials
the body, eg from extremes of heat
or cold
PPE is needed in these cases to
reduce the risk.
When must PPE be used?
The fundamental principle is that personal protective
equipment (PPE) should only be used as a last resort.
The safety and health of employees must be first safeguarded
by measures to eliminate workplace risks at source, through technical or
organisational means (e.g by substituting hazardous chemical ) or by providing
protection on a collective basis (e.g providing scaffolding instead of
harnesses).
Collective protective measures covering numbers of employees
in a workplace must have priority over protective measures applying to
individual employees.
If these measures are not sufficient, only then should PPE
be used to protect against the hazards that are unavoidable.
No comments:
Post a Comment