Personal protective equipment

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Safety helmet redirects here. Often, "safety helmet" specifically means a workman's hard hat.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garment designed to protect the wearer's body or clothing from injury by blunt impacts, electrical hazards, heat, chemicals, and infection, for job-related occupational safety and health purposes, and in sports, martial arts, combat, etc. body armor is combat-specialized protective gear. In British legislation the term PPE does not cover items such as armour.

PPE can also be used to protect the working environment from pesticide application, pollution or infection from the worker (for example in a microchip factory). The protection may be important in both ways, as with the use of disposable gloves by surgeons and dentists.

The terms "protective gear" and "protective clothing" are in many cases interchangeable; "protective clothing" is applied to traditional categories of clothing, and "gear" is a more general term and preferably means uniquely protective categories, such as pads, guards, shields, masks, etc.

Common protective materials include Nomex and Kevlar.

[edit] Law Enforcement / Corrections

Law enforcement and Corrections officers wear Blunt Trauma PPE for crowd management, civil disturbances, cell extractions, riot control, violent disturbances, and other emergency response operations. To assure their equipment is safe, end-users and industry refer to standards:

[edit] Sports

Protective clothing is also worn for contact sports, such as ice hockey and American football. Baseball players wear sliding shorts and a cup under their pants. See baseball clothing and equipment, goalie mask, jockstrap.

For riding a motorcycle, protective headgear and eyewear are required by law in many countries.

[edit] Respiratory protection

Respirators such as "gas masks" and particulate respirators filter chemicals and gases or airborne particles. A second type of respirator protects users by providing clean, respirable air from another source. This type includes airline respirators and self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA).[4]

In work environments, respirators are used when adequate ventilation is not available or other engineering control systems are not feasible.[4]

Air-Purifying Respirator

[edit] Protective headgear

a beekeeping hat, veil, and suit

[edit] Helmets

See Helmet#Types of helmet

[edit] Masks

Some masks made of hard material like those used by goaltenders in ice hockey (a goalie mask) and catchers in baseball as protection against being struck in the face.

[edit] Eye protection

Goggles

See Eye protection.

[edit] Hearing protection

ear defenders and visor on a safety helmet

[edit] Other head/neck protection

Safety helmet with visor

[edit] Arm/shoulder protection

nitrile glove

[edit] Hand protection

[edit] Body protection

Also see Blunt Trauma PPE

[edit] Leg/hip protection

clogs

[edit] Protective garments

Protective suit is an umbrella term for any suit or clothing which protects the wearer. Any specific design of suit may offer protection against biological and chemical chemical agents, particle radiation (alpha) and/or radiation (delta and gamma), and may offer flash protection in the case of bomb disposal suits. Most forms of industrial clothing are protective clothing. Personal protective equipment includes:

[edit] Complete suits

The word "chemsuit" is sometimes used to mean a real chemical-protection suit, as well as fictional.

[edit] Other garments

  • Zip-off Convertible Ventilated Trousers:
    Convertible Ventilated Trousers shown with one leg cover removed
    These are pants styled in the zip-off fashion, where covers are removed from the lower section, exposing a mesh material on the lower legs. This allows the cooling and ventilation of shorts while providing the user the abrasion protection and appearance of regular pants. CVT's were originally designed for and are still predominantly used as work clothing, as the wearing of shorts is often prohibited for safety reasons in many industrial occupations.

[edit] Sets of equipment

  • Chainsaw protection (especially a helmet with face guard, hearing protection, kevlar chaps, anti-vibration gloves, and safety boots). Specific information about chainsaw protection is given in the chainsaw safety clothing article.
  • Bee keepers wear various levels of protection depending on the temperament of their bees and the reaction of the bees to nectar availability. At minimum most bee keepers wear a brimmed hat and a veil made of hardware cloth similar to window screen material. The next level of protection is offered by leather gloves with long gauntlets and by some way of keeping bees from crawling up one's trouser legs. In extreme cases, shirts and trousers are also fabricated to serve as barriers to the bees' stingers.
  • Diving equipment (scuba gear)

[edit] Other personal protective equipment


[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ CAN/CSA Z617-06. Canadian Standards Association.
  2. ^ HOSDB Blunt Trauma Protector Standard. Home Office Scientific Development Branch.
  3. ^ NIJ Standard 0115.00. National Institute of Justice.
  4. ^ a b Respirators. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
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