Safety Tip: Personal Protective Equipment (Are You Dressed For the Occasion)?
Wearing the proper clothing and personal protective equipment on the job is critical. Appropriate clothing is your first and often only line of defense against many safety and health hazards.
Proper clothing: is Key. Simple as it may sound, you must dress for the occasion. Wearing stylish clothing can create a bigger hazard or may not provide protection from hazards while you work. Proper clothing that protects is the key. It is not uncommon to hear about tragedies that have taken place when a worker who was wearing loose clothing got too close to an operating machine and was drawn into the machine. Machines are powerful and unforgiving! Loose clothing is never appropriate in an industrial workplace.
Protect your feet: Standard footwear for most maintenance related activities should be sturdy leather footwear, preferably boots equipped with safety toes if handling heavy objects. Tennis shoes, offer little or no protection against worksite hazards.
Hand Protection: Gloves are inexpensive and easily available protection which guards against many hazards. They can protect hands from exposures ranging from chemical spills and cuts, to heat and cold. Hand protection comes in huge assortment of styles, materials and sizes. All of them are made to protect your hands from specific hazards. It is important to select the proper kind and style of glove to effectively protect hands from the hazards that may be encountered.
Jewelry in the workplace: can also be a hazard that is often overlooked. Rings, bracelets, and chains can be the cause of a much more severe hand related accident. Common sense should be considered when wearing your jewelry. The best choice is to keep your jewelry at home.
Head Protection and Eye Protection: Hard hats and safety glasses should be worn at the work site whenever there is an overhead hazard or potential for an object to enter the eyes. A hard hat can not only protect you from the rain, it can save your life! The benefits received from eye protection are significant Safety glasses are a sure way to help save your eyesight!
Dressing for the workplace, by wearing the right kind of clothing helps protect you from injury. It is your first line of defense against worksite hazards. Carefully choose your work clothing and the personal protective equipment which will best protect you for your job. Improper clothing is an invitation for an accident to occur.
Think Safety by choosing your work clothing with the workplace in mind
Remember – “It is better to be careful 100 times than to get killed once.” (Mark Twain)