Page 78 - Occupational Health & Safety, June 2017

HAND PROTECTION
The old standard had five ratings, but the new version nearly doubled it with a new scale of A1-A9. The change adds high-end levels, reflecting the influx of high-performance cut-resistant gloves in the marketplace.
ISEA 105-2016 standards, visit Ansell’s Reg- ulatory and Compliance Resource center at www.ansell.com/regulatory-compliance.
In conjunction with the new European standards, Ansell has a full global portfo- lio of gloves and full-body PPE to protect against chemicals, microorganisms, and other physical or mechanical threats to worker safety. Additionally, Ansell Guard- ian services help companies select the right PPE solution to improve their safety, pro- ductivity, and cost performance.
REFERENCES
1. https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owa- disp.show_document?p_table=PREAMBLES&p_ id=1021
from the end user perspective.
Another change allows for greater
specificity in cut performance ratings. The old standard had five ratings, but the new version nearly doubled it with a new scale of A1-A9. The change adds high-end lev- els (A7, A8, A9), reflecting the influx of high-performance cut-resistant gloves in the marketplace. The revised standard also increases segmentation in the old ANSI cut 4 range, meaning gloves rated 4 in the old range may now fall in A4, A5, or A6 in the new range.
Often, where there are cut risks there also is the threat of puncture, and the standard made a small addition related to puncture prevention. The revised standard adds a needlestick puncture test. This is es- pecially relevant for industries such as sani- tation, recycling, or health care, where pro- tection from smaller, hypodermic needles is important.
These are important changes that should help employers better match the right gloves to the right jobs. There were additional updates around impact resis- tance and vibration reduction, but those are topics for another day.
What Does It Mean?
Most safety managers use standards as guides for glove selection, which makes continual review and refinement of those standards critically important. In the ab- sence of effective standards, safety-minded organizations often default to overprotec- tion, which can be just as problematic as insufficient protection. Workers wearing gloves that provide more protection than needed—often thicker, bulkier models— tend to discard the gloves because they impair performance or are simply uncom- fortable. That’s what leads to the 70 percent who aren’t wearing gloves when suffering an injury.
The other issue, of course, is the real- ity that these standards function more as guidelines than as any sort of enforceable regulation. Employers may make glove product compliance mandatory in the workplace, yet there is no official body or
organization that enforces glove compli- ance. Until we get there, it’s up to PPE manufacturers, employers, and workers to remain diligent in pursuing safety best practices. The updates to the ANSI/ISEA 105 standard are an important step forward as the industry strives to keep pace with workplace and PPE innovations.
Steve Genzer is President and General Man- ager, Industrial Global Business Unit, for Ansell. For more information on the ANSI/
EXAMINING THE UPDATES TO EN 388 AND EN ISO 374
The United States isn’t alone in updating standards around hand protection. The European Standardization Organization revisited over the last several years standards related to glove safety and testing. Most standards in question had remained unchanged since 2003 and lagged well behind state-of-the-art glove technologies.
EN ISO 374
EN 374 is a series of standards guiding testing methodologies and providing requirements for gloves to be used when working with dangerous chemicals and microorganisms. As part of the change, EN 374 became EN ISO 374, meaning the standards will be adopted internationally, simplifying glove selec- tion and compliance around the world.
EN ISO 374-1 expands the number of chemicals against which a chemical glove must be tested and provide resistance. This change is reflected in the pictogram used to signify chemical resistance.
EN ISO 374-1 and EN 374-4 add previously absent requirements to test for degradation resistance and specify a testing methodology.
EN ISO 374-5 addresses protection against microorganisms, specifically adding a viral penetration test to determine whether a glove protects against viruses. If a glove is certified against viruses, the word “VIRUS” will appear under the pictogram.
EN 388
EN 388 covers glove performance against mechanical hazards and includes performance requirements related to abrasion, cut, tear, puncture, and impact protection.
The updated standard introduces a new abrasive paper designed to deliver more consistent results when testing for abrasion resistance. This new paper is, in some instances, more abrasive, which means some gloves will need to be tested again for abrasion resistance and graded accordingly.
The updates also dictate a significant change around the methodology for cut testing. Today’s specially engineered yarns incorporate blunting materials that dull the blade and make the old cut test irrelevant. The new standard incorporates the ISO 13997 cut resistance test for these new, advanced mate- rials. The updates also introduce a new standard for impact protection.
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