Page 34 - Occupational Health & Safety, April 2018

HAND PROTECTION
Safety managers must wade through a wide array of cut and chemical safety products to find the right balance of protection.
managers and workers alike: finding safety solutions that provide comfort and per- formance without compromising chemi- cal or cut protection. Thanks to innova- tions in PPE, such options exist, but they do so in a sea of gloves that settle for cut or chemical protection at the expense of grip, comfort, or dexterity. Safety manag- ers must wade through a wide array of cut and chemical safety products to find the right balance of protection.
Understanding Existing
Worker Needs
Let’s take a step back—what are chemical workers looking for when it comes to hand protection?
With more than 60 million chemicals registered in the Chemical Abstract Ser- vice registry, finding the right chemical protective glove is not an easy task. Many different chemicals and chemical mixes are used in a typical product process or production facility, and every unique set of chemicals requires specific safety pre- cautions. To match the expansive set of chemicals that can be present in any giv- en workspace, chemical-resistant gloves come in a wide variety of barrier materi- als, thickness, and designs.
Not only does the glove need to protect against permeation breakthroughs of chemicals, its fabrication also must stand up to cuts and abrasion.
However, the glove game becomes even more complicated when cut risks come in the mix. Not only does the glove need to protect against permeation breakthroughs of chemicals, its fabrication also must stand up to cuts and abrasion to ensure workers are protected against other possible risks.
According to the current chemical workforce, this is where current gloves aren’t standing up to the task at hand. A 2017 Ansell market research shows 86 percent of chemical glove wearers indi- cated they would like cut protection in their current chemical gloves, and cut protection was the number one desired improvement to the design of chemical gloves. Workers are speaking loud and
technologies and businesses challenged to forge paths of accelerated growth, the need to multitask and quickly change from a chemical setting to a mechanical setting is the new norm. Workers are be- ing challenged to move more quickly and efficiently from task to task for better pro- ductivity and performance.
As chemical work becomes increasingly
more complex, so does outfitting workers with proper personal protective equipment (PPE). Chemical workers regularly dealing with automated machinery or advanced equipment are routinely exposed to cut hazards in chemical applications, putting themselves at an increased risk of injury, poor comfort, and loss of productivity.
So a new challenge arises for safety
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