Goggles & specs go eye to eye

While some form of eye protection is often needed on construction sites, knowing exactly what is
required is often less than straight forward. Graham Abbott offers some advice

Arecent visitor to the IOSH website
forum was asking for advice for a
safety policy she was writing after
some chemical splash incidents. She was
inclined to follow the guidance given on
the material safety data sheet (MSDS),
but another writer considered these to
be overly defensive and took little
account of how the materials were used.

Someone else wrote that their company
insisted on goggles without exception
whenever chemicals were handled, and
yet another said that where they worked
safety spectacles were worn at all times,
and goggles carried for high risk tasks.

There is no legislation to assist in the
decision, or to contravene. Safety spectacles
don’t provide the same level of impact
resistance as goggles but the mechanical
threat alone is not the definitive factor.

Goggles provide liquid splash, dust and
fume protection but are not the most
popular to wear over a full shift and are
more likely to be removed if they are
uncomfortable, fog up and don’t fit.

The employer is legally responsible for
assessing the risks and deciding how to
manage them. Eye protection must be
provided whenever employees are
exposed to potential eye injuries if work
practices or engineering controls cannot
eliminate the hazard. Each task and
workplace environment carries its own
hazards, such as blood and infected body
fluids in a medical environment, flying
particles and welding arc in
manufacturing, splashes and fumes from
chemicals and even bright sunlight in the
construction industry.

The risk assessment should identify all
possible threats, and as always engineering
controls and working practices fully
explored first with PPE used only as a last
resort. The EN166:2002 standards give a
clear idea of what each item of eye
protection will defend against and its
degree of resilience to impact hazards.

The markings found on all safety frames
and lenses will reveal the product’s
performance in the face of impact, dust,
liquid splash, molten metals, optical
quality, sun glare and even their resistance
to fogging and surface scratching. But it is
down to you to match the hazards your
employees face with the protection
offered by the product.

The basic rule of thumb suggested by
UVEX is that goggles are more suitable
for tasks such as grinding or cutting, bolt,
needle and nail guns, concrete breakers or
any other task requiring high levels of
explosive force or impact. Goggles should
also be worn when there are
environmental contaminates such as dust
or fumes which will not be prevented
from reaching the eye by spectacles. At
other times spectacles should be worn in
accordance with the risk assessment
and/or the site or company policy.

For prescription lens users, the
minimum requirement is the use of
overspecs or goggles. At best,
prescription safety specs
which incorporate safety
lenses and side shields. Full
face shields can be an option to
goggles for impact and splash
as well as being compatible
with prescription spectacles and
some respiratory masks.

In some industries the mandatory use
of eye protection is becoming common.

Some construction companies now insist
on the use of eye protection at all times,
and all sites have areas and tasks for
which protection is compulsory. The
Wates Group introduced the compulsory
wearing of eye protection in 2005, and eye
injuries fell by 80 per cent as a result. It
had introduced a policy five years earlier
that all workers must carry eyewear, but
employees resisted wearing the equipment
and the injuries continued. Most were
minor and typical for construction work,
such as a moderate direct impact to the
eye or eye area, or airborne foreign
objects entering the eye. Some were more
serious but none involved long-term loss
or damage to eyesight.

Many Wates workers had been in the
industry for decades and never worn eye
protection or suffered injury, and the
concept of eye protection was of
something that was uncomfortable,
unattractive and unnecessary. Uvex had
the task of presenting its modern frame
designs and lens coatings and challenging
workers to test the comfort and style of
products which had already received
acceptance in other industries. Goggles
and spectacles will offer exactly the same
level of protection if they are not worn,
which is none at all. The first
consideration in making the selection of
any PPE is will the worker continue
wearing it when the foreman’s back is
turned, and that is usually down to
comfort, style and education.

Graham Abbott is sales and marketing
director for UVEX (UK)