PROTECTIVE CLOTHING & WORKWEAR
CLOTHING THAT CONFORMS
Protective wear is a surefire way of ensuring your staff remain safe whilst on site, says Peter Dumigan, MD of the Hultafors Group UK, owners of Snickers Workwear.
The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 stipulate that: “Every employer shall ensure that suitable personal protective equipment is provided to his employees who may be exposed to a risk to their health or safety while at work except where and to the extent that such
risk has been adequately controlled by other means which are equally or more effective.”
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR WORKWEAR? Workwear as a form of PPE generally includes safety
glasses, face shields, hard hats, safety shoes, insulating (rubber) gloves plus clothing more commonly known as protective wear.
As working clothes go, there’s a big difference between conventional workwear and specialist protective wear. Over the years, workwear has evolved to make your working day more comfortable and efficient, with built-in functionality for tools and fixings, as well as protection against cold, rain and the effects of warm weather.
Protective wear, which can have one or more CE (European Conformity) marks is significantly more specialist and has been developed to protect the wearer from serious risks such as heat, flames, mechanical hazards electric arcs, hazardous chemicals – and even the weather. In effect, it’s a type of clothing that can mean the difference between life and death for the wearer.
Protective wear has to be certified against Regulation (EU) 2016/425, which determines the fundamental safety and protection requirements with which clothing has to comply.
The product certification process for this regulation includes the independent testing and accreditation of a product’s functionality and performance. This is
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carried out against a pre-determined set of standards and technical specifications that are designed to ensure a user’s safety and security.
It’s a complex process that requires a considerable investment in time, resources and money on the part of the product developer who, on successful completion, is required to affix the CE mark to the product as a visible indication of conformity with the fundamental accreditation requirements.
The types of testing vary from one certification to another. For protective wear, the higher the protection category, the more complex is the testing process, which for protective wear, primarily focuses on garment fabrics.
For instance, Snickers Workwear’s new, ergonomically designed ProtekWork clothing manufactured for welding and allied processes is tested to measure the ability of the garment to protect against ignition from various heat sources, such as open flames, molten iron splash and contact heat.
The ProtekWork clothing that safeguards against the thermal hazards of an electric arc is tested and certified to eliminate second-degree burns in the event of an electric arc flash.
RISK ENVIRONMENTS AND CE PROTECTION
CATEGORIES In order to meet the protective requirements of a specific risk area, protective wear is divided into three categories - the higher the category number, the higher the level of protection.
Category I covers exposure to minimal risks, and for this category there are CE standards such as EN 343 (rain protection) and EN 14058 (cold protection).
Category II includes exposure to medium risks, for instance EN 20471 for high visibility clothing.
Category III covers exposure to serious risks, which include major hazards such as electric arcs and molten metal splashes or liquid chemicals.
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