Essential safety equipment in the workplace

There are a lot of complaints that health and safety has gone mad and that people can’t have fun anymore.

Everywhere you look there are warning signs telling you about the risks of doing certain things or not wearing certain items, but the truth is that these warnings are there for a very good reason – to stop you, and others, from being hurt. You’d certainly be unhappy if you weren’t warned and suffered an injury.

It doesn’t matter what industry you work in, there are always some kind of health and safety regulations in place. Builders are encouraged to wear thick, protective work gloves to help protect their hands from injuries involving hammers or bricks; professional drivers are encouraged to take regular breaks, and even those working in IT are often supplied with ergonomic keyboards and supportive chairs to prevent muscular or repetitive strain injuries.

Those working in particularly dangerous industries, such as building or manufacturing, are always at risk of picking up some form of injury – many of which are not their fault and they can do nothing about them. However, they can do their upmost to reduce the risk of injuries occurring by wearing certain safety equipment, including:

High Visibility Clothing. The bright yellow or orange clothing is designed to make people in all industries visible to people working in yards or out on the roads during dangerous or harsh conditions. Taking one particular example, an employee might be moving a cage full of cardboard that is being taken for recycling. If someone is driving a forklift around the same yard, they may not be able to see them, especially if it’s raining, and the high visibility jacket being worn could prove to be the difference between the driver seeing the person, and being involved in an accident.

Steel-Capped Footwear. When working with heavy objects, either at a building site or merchants, or possibly when you’re in the industry of cutting down trees, you run the risk of items falling on your feet because they get too heavy or just fall from their position. Your feet are particularly important in all areas of life, and having adequate protection for your toes in the form of steel toe-caps can prevent a broken toe from keeping you off work.

Eye Protection. One of the most important forms of protection you should invest in. When working with any products where fragments could break, shatter or fly upwards, you should be wearing protective goggles or glasses to ensure that any loose particles don’t end up going into your eye. If you opt against wearing the protective eyewear, you run the risk of causing serious damage to your eyes including blindness.