Personal protective equipment or PPE is additional appropriate personal gear usually recommended or regulated by OSHA/ANSI standards. The purpose of this personal safety equipment is to protect a person from different kinds of hazards that may occur in various circumstances. The nature of the hazards can vary. Sometimes it may be because of the profession or occupation industrial machinery manufacturing companies that one chooses where they could be exposed to adverse health conditions, infection, heat generated or chemical related hazards, heights and elevated work surfaces, low-visibility, high traffic or noisy environments, etc. The person who is prone to be exposed to this kind of situation should have a well designed set of personal protective equipment.
Common equipment may include: hard hats, ear plugs, hearing protection, head, eye and face protection, respirators safety boots and coveralls. A hard hat or safety helmet is a protective form of head gear which is usually used in places like construction sites where there is risk of head injury due to falling objects. The hard hat is designed to spread the weight of the hat evenly over the top of the workers head, most hard hats are designed to maintain roughly 30 mm of space between the hard hat’s shell and the wearer’s head to greatly reduce the impact in the event of an accident occurring. Face shields and safety goggles are used to protect the face from flying objects and chemical splashes face shields are commonly used by the police for crowd control or in labs for chemical splash control.
Z87 Safety glasses protect the eye from dust, chemicals and impacts, some safety glasses come with UV inhibitor coatings and many have different lens shades to protect eyes from overexposure to light. Ear plugs or earmuffs promote hearing conservation and protect ears from very loud deafening sounds 90 dB or above that may damage the ears if exposed with consistency over time. Respirators provide protection from inhaling harmful gases, dust and fumes. Respirators may be disposable or reusable, some may contain a filter which purifies the contaminated air that the wearer is inhaling others are equipped with an alternate air supply for the user. Safety toe boots are safety boots with steel or composite toes these work boots are used to protect workers feet from falling objects especially in the toe area. FR, FRC or flame retardant garments are clothes which are made of specially designed fire resistant treated durable material to provide protection from fire. Wearing flame retardant clothing is a must for those who work in factories and mines or in places where there is a high risk of being exposed to or on catching fire.
Today there are many advanced and sophisticated types of personal protective equipment safety equipment manufacturers available which give absolute protection in every kind of hazardous situation.
