Top 7 PPE (Personal Protective Equipment's) for Workplace Safety

What is PPE? Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to a group of products that are designed specifically for protection of workers from hazardous workplace situations.

In regulations, personal protective equipment would be defined as all equipment such as (clothing affording protection against weather) which would be intended to worn or gets held by people while protecting them against one or multiple risks to the safety of their health like eye protection, hearing protection gloves, safety harnesses, safety footwear, high-visibility, safety helmets, etc.

The referred regulations above cover all personal protective equipment. However, hearing protection and respiratory protection gets covered through specific regulations.

Protective Clothing like safety jackets can protect the body of the workers and other members from hazardous substances such as hot oils, welding sparks, etc. The protection suit is also called as boiler suit.

1. Safety Shoes
   
   Most of the internal space of the workplace gets utilized through machinery and motors, which are built through hard metal. Thus, it can become clumsy for the crew to walk around. With safety shoes it’s ensured that nothing happens to the feet of crew members while walking or working onboard.
   
   
2. Safety helmets
   
   Human body’s most vital part that needs protective care is the head. It must be ensured that utmost protection is provided to the head with a rigid substance such as hard plastic. These safety helmets must be attached with a chin strap which would keep the helmet on place where there can be a fall or a trip.
   
   
3. Goggles
   
   The most sensitive part of human body is the eyes and is used in daily operations of the workplace. The chances of injury are much higher for the eyes and safety goggles or glasses are used for protection of eyes, whereas welding goggles would be used for different operations that would protect eyes through the sparks of high intensity.
   
   
4. Safety harness
   
   Some Routine operations would include printing and maintenance of elevated and high surfaces that require workers for unreachable areas that can’t be accessed. Safety harness can be used for avoiding falls through heightened areas. Safety harness would be donned by operator at the single end and ties through a strong point to the other.
   
   
5. Welding shield
   
   One of the most common operations done in factories is welding of materials. A welder is provided with welding masks and shields that protect your eyes and come in direct contact with ultraviolet rays for sparking the weld.
   
   
6. Electrical protection
   
   One of the highest risks in most of the workplaces is getting shocks and burns by encountering high voltage current while working on different kinds of electrical systems. Getting an electric shock of higher voltage can turn out to be fatal. Thus, rubber insulating equipment like safety gloves must be used for protecting employees from shocks. While wearing this protective equipment all cotton undergarments and shirts with acrylic stitched logos wouldn’t be permissible.
   
   
7. Respirators
   
   Working daily places with dirt, chemicals and toxic fumes can inflict a lot of damage to the respiratory systems of workers. This adequate protection must already be in hand. Most of these respiratory masks rely on filtering contaminants from workplace air. These would include simple filtering respirators and face pieces and respirators that are power assisted.
   
   Before buying respiratory and other devices one must make sure that these fit in a proper manner, e.g. for tight-fitting respirators (filtering face pieces, full and half masks)

Rakesh Mishra is an blogger, has a keen interest in the dynamics and operations of industrial products such as safety shoes, helmets, goggles etc. He loves to share information to help people lead a productive & safe life.