Choosing safety apparel that’s fit for purpose

Safety apparel must be selected to suit the applications and hazards that the workers who wear them need protection against. While it’s quite common to purchase ‘one-size-fits-all’ safety coveralls, for example, we can’t assume that one size fits all applications. There are situations where a single type of garment or coverall suits only specific purposes, just as there are situations where disposable coveralls are better than full-blown safety suits.

Companies shouldn’t assume that just one type of safety coverall or garment is all they need to keep on hand to deal with the many hazardous materials that may be encountered in their workplace. Each of these hazards needs to be better understood before sending in people to deal with them.

Just like other PPE - gloves, boots and head protection - safety apparel is not only available in different styles and sizes, but also many forms to suit specific situations. The simplest way to cover all potential hazards is to purchase coveralls with the highest protection and use them in every situation. Then there would be no hassles with providing adequate protection, right? Wrong. Short of providing workers with NASA space suits, no one safety garment is perfect for every situation.

Let’s say you decided to purchase ultra-high-protection garments - EN Type 1 coveralls providing gas-tight protection and made of fire-retardant fabric - for 100 workers potentially exposed to various hazards. At several thousand dollars each, you might get a ‘please explain’ from the financial controller. Yes, you’re providing a high degree of safety, but are the workers ever going to be exposed to all the risks these garments can protect against? It would be difficult to financially justify this excessive cost.

Ron Williams, Managing Director of safety apparel manufacturer Fabricell Australia, says that a site assessment is critical to ensuring the most appropriate safety apparel is selected and worn: “There’s a wide range of garment types and protection ratings to choose from, but it should all start by qualifying the hazard to be protected against and the environment workers are likely to be wearing the apparel in.

“I encourage my sales staff to conduct site and safety assessments for all our clients before they recommend any types of apparel. That way they’re better equipped to recommend the right protection. In many cases, our clients have found that their safety apparel purchase ended up being less than they expected, simply because they had gone overboard in previous purchases.

“Choosing the right safety apparel should start with a hazard assessment. For example, in dusty hazardous environments, a Type 5 and 6 SMS garment would typically provide adequate protection. SMS is a three-layer fabric construction that acts as an overall particle filter, providing protection down to 3-micron particles. However, in similar applications but exposed to wet hazards, a coated or laminated Type 4 garment that provides breathability as well as a moisture barrier would be a better choice.”

Important criteria

“The two most vulnerable points of permeation in coveralls are seams and garment closure systems - zips, studs and buttons,” continues Williams. “When choosing garments, it’s important to inspect these areas when looking at samples. Look at the quality of the seaming - is there tape under all of the seams? Always consider the application and check that it will provide adequate protection for wearers. We often guide our clients to one of our supplier’s website - www.microgard.com - where there are some excellent charts that define protection clothing types and make recommendations on what garments to wear in what situations.

“Another issue to consider is the ‘breathability’ of coveralls. While it’s a desirable attribute for wearer comfort, you need to be conscious of the hazardous environment you’re working in. Working with asbestos is of particular concern because the coverall fabric must be able to entrap the asbestos fibres and contain them. You shouldn’t wear suits that allow airborne fibres to penetrate the fabric and lodge in the worker’s underclothes. It gets back to safety apparel being fit for purpose. In hazardous environments, coveralls are just as important as respiratory protection. They form part of the total hazard containment.

“An example of good practice in total hazard containment is fire brigade ‘first response units’, who typically deploy high-quality disposable suits to initially determine the nature of hazardous environments and then decide whether to send in personnel in full-blown suits. That’s because disposable suits are far less expensive to purchase and discard after exposure to hazards than the cost of decontaminating, testing and recertifying re-usable suits after the same exposure.

Custom safety apparel

While there are many types of safety apparel, some situations can’t be totally addressed by off-the-shelf apparel and therefore require custom garments. A case in point is power utilities, whose field workforce are exposed to unique combinations of risks.

“We’ve produced custom safety garments for numerous companies,” adds Williams. “These are typically large organisations with plenty of research into what they specifically need from safety apparel. Power companies, for example, require garments that are chemical resistant, fire retardant, waterproof yet breathable and protect against arc-flash. And they must be soft and comfortable to wear, because they’re in them all day, every day.

“We’re often approached by clients to modify our garments to suit their unique needs. One example is when we attached a flange with an inlet tube into a disposable coverall for a client in northern Australia, so their workers could attach a cooling device. We also work with fabric manufacturers to jointly develop special fabrics for specific applications.”

Influenced by fashion?

It wasn’t too long ago that the standard industrial safety apparel consisted of dark blue, heavy cotton-drill pants and shirts, with hi-vis safety vests over the top. Generally, it was utilitarian – fit for purpose - but was often uncomfortable if you weren’t the ‘typical’ size and possibly even dangerous if the sleeves were too big and got caught in machinery.

Today, safety garments seem to have progressed from that utilitarian look to being available in an endless choice of styles, fabrics, colours and sizes. Are workers possibly being influenced by fashion nowadays at the expense of basic safety?

“No,” Williams answers emphatically. “The trend from overseas is for ‘outdoor sports style’ clothing to set the pattern for safety clothing. For many years in Europe, it’s been the norm for safety gear to have ‘street cred’. But there’s been resistance to it here in Australia until recently, perhaps because some safety folk thought it was too extreme or diluted the emphasis on safety in favour of fashion. But lately many workers, young tradies in particular, have become more open to wearing safety gear influenced by fashion and even wearing it after hours - at home, at shopping centres, at barbecues, etc. In recent years, fashion has had a dramatic influence on the acceptance and use of safety equipment, especially in eyewear and safety boots. Maybe the ‘trendy tradie’ is now driving industry towards more fashionable workwear.

“There’s also been a reversal of influence lately, where safety is being manufactured into normal day-to-day clothing - hi-vis polo shirts and polar-fleece tops, fire-rated bomber jackets, chemical-resistant hiking boots and even dress shoes with steel-cap toes - rather than clothing that’s designed only to be worn as safety gear.

“Safety garment manufacturers are certainly more conscious of the influence of fashion these days, monitoring the attitudes of buyers so as to be quick to respond to trends in buyer demand. Maybe the trends we’re seeing now are indicative of the difference between Gen Y’s and previous generations; and as they get older and more dominant in the market, fashionable safety gear will become the norm. Worker acceptance is the key. To protect, it has to be worn; and if it’s to be worn, it has to be fit for purpose.”