Modern PPE Creates Innovative, Comfortable Hand Protection Options for Workers
Today, gloves are made from innovative, lightweight materials that provide protection, comfort and reduced hand fatigue, so workers are more likely to wear them.
- By Rahil Hasan
- Feb 01, 2022
When you consider that more than one million workers are sent to emergency rooms each year with hand injuries, it is clear that wearing protective hand equipment is essential to everyday work. In fact, working with sharp objects, heavy machinery or chemicals exposes workers’ hands to serious dangers that can cause permanent damage. Hands can be a workers’ most valuable tool, so using the right protection is vital to employees’ livelihood and to your company’s success. After all, choosing the wrong hand protection can put workers at high risks, create discomfort and bring additional costs to your company.
Luckily, it has never been easier to select the proper hand protection for any work setting. There are many options available: mechanical gloves, cut-resistant gloves, chemical gloves, sleeves and more. Hand protection equipment has also evolved by leaps and bounds from your grandfather’s heavy leather work gloves. Today, gloves are made from innovative, lightweight materials that provide protection, comfort and reduced hand fatigue, so workers are more likely to wear them.
Prioritizing the Need for Safety Equipment
Regardless of your line of work, safety should always be the top priority. Every day, hundreds of millions of people work in hazardous environments, and rely on their safety equipment to get them home each night. PPE runs the gamut from head-to-toe garments, steel-toed boots, hearing protection, hand protection equipment and more. Modern PPE adapts to changing needs and environments, which means no matter what job a worker is doing, adequate PPE exists. Instead of getting in the way, modern PPE increases productivity and efficiency. Most importantly, they are easy to wear from the beginning of a shift all the way until a worker clocks out and heads home.
Hand injuries happen when workers wear gloves that are inadequate, damaged or incorrect for the application—or they’re not wearing any gloves at all. In fact, a recent study found that 70 percent of hand injuries occurred because workers weren’t wearing any gloves. Today’s industrial safety gloves are designed to keep workers safe when handling all types of surfaces and materials across a variety of environments. For example, some of the potential risks to hands and arms include exposure to caustic liquids that can cause chemical burns, exposure to extreme temperatures that can cause thermal burns, abrasions, cuts and punctures that can happen when working with sharp tools and equipment with moving parts. In this article, we will take a look at the different types of protective hand equipment to suit almost any industrial need.
This article originally appeared in the February 1, 2022 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.