Personal protective equipment - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Personal protective equipment (PPE) refers to protective clothing

Clothing

Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

, helmets, goggles

Goggles

Goggles or safety glasses are forms of protective eyewear that usually enclose or protect the area surrounding the eye in order to prevent particulates, water or chemicals from striking the eyes. They are used in chemistry laboratories and in woodworking. They are often used in snow sports as well,...

, or other garment or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury

Injury

-By cause:*Traumatic injury, a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident*Other injuries from external physical causes, such as radiation injury, burn injury or frostbite*Injury from infection...

by blunt impacts, electrical hazards, heat, chemicals, and infection, for job-related occupational safety and health

Occupational safety and health

Occupational safety and health is a cross-disciplinary area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goal of all occupational safety and health programs is to foster a safe work environment...

purposes, and in sports, martial arts

Martial arts

Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....

, combat

Combat

Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....

, etc. Personal armor

Personal armor

Personal armor is the whole of protecting clothing, designed to absorb and/or deflect slashing, bludgeoning, and penetrating attacks. They were historically used to protect soldiers, whereas today, they are also used to protect police forces, private citizens and private security guards or...

is combat-specialized protective gear. In British legislation

Legislation

Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...

the term PPE does not cover items such as armour. 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. Items such as fire extinguishers, first aid kits are equipment to support the personal protection of the subject. Police use handcuffs, tasers, batons and handguns as PPE.

The use of personal protective equipment is to reduce employee exposure to hazards when engineering and administrative controls are not feasible or effective to reduce these risks to acceptable levels.

Biological hazard protection

Protective equipment for biological hazards includes masks

Surgical mask

A surgical mask also known as a procedure mask is intended to be worn by health professionals during surgery and at other times to catch the bacteria shed in liquid droplets and aerosols from the wearer's mouth and nose....

worn by medical personnel (especially in surgery to avoid infecting

Infection

An infection is the colonization of a host organism by parasite species. Infecting parasites seek to use the host's resources to reproduce, often resulting in disease...

the patient but also to avoid exposing the personnel to infection from the patient.) Gloves, frequently changed, are used to prevent infection but also transfer between patients.

One measure to reduce the risks of transmitting skin microorganisms from one person to another is in the use of single use disposable blood pressure cuff covers. Reports of hospitals reducing their hospital acquired infection rate by nearly 50% through the use of disposable protective covers for blood pressure cuffs have been reported.

Ballistic

Ballistic personal protective equipment (or armor) is used in combat by soldier

Soldier

A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

s and in lesser conflicts by law enforcement

Law enforcement agency

In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...

Flying debris or splashing liquids

A face shield

Face shield

A face shield is a device used to protect wearer's entire face from impact hazard such as flying objects and road debris, chemical splashes , or potentially infectious fluid .-Industry:...

protects from flying debris such as produced by cutting, welding, chipping, or sanding, and protects against splashes or spray of liquids. Safety glasses provide protection for the eyes and may additionally be tinted to block UV or laser light. Goggles

Goggles

seal tightly about the eyes and provide superior protection from dust, dirt, and fumes.

Sharp injuries

Meat packers and others who routinely use hand-held knives in their work may use mail gloves to protect the hands from cuts. Those in other professions where sharps injuries are a concern often utilize cut and puncture resistant protective gloves, and hand held safety tools that offer critical stand-off distance between themselves and whatever they may come into contact.

Blunt trauma

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:

Canadian Standards Association
Canadian Standards Association
The Canadian Standards Association, also known as the CSA, is a not-for-profit Standards organization with the stated aim of developing standards for use in 57 different areas of specialisation...

CAN/CSA Z617-06 Personal Protective Equipment for Blunt Trauma.
Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

Scientific Development Branch: HOSDB Blunt Trauma Protector Standard for UK Police (2007) - Limb and Torso Protectors 20-07.
National Institute of Justice
National Institute of Justice
The National Institute of Justice is the research, development and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice. NIJ, along with the Bureau of Justice Statistics , Bureau of Justice Assistance , Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention , Office for Victims of Crime ,...

NIJ Standard 0115.00 Stab Resistance of Personal Body Armor - Spike Level 1.

Radioactive contamination

When a person works in an area of radioactive contamination, anti-contamination clothing, often including gloves, shoe covers, and masks are worn, usually in addition to regular clothes. To prevent radioactive particles from entering the suit, duct tape

Duct tape

Duct tape, or duck tape, is cloth- or scrim-backed pressure sensitive tape often sealed with polyethylene. It is very similar to gaffer tape but differs in that gaffer tape was designed to be cleanly removed, while duct tape was not. It has a standard width of and is generally silver or black...

may be used to seal the openings. In cases of heavy contamination, it is often more convenient to wear two or more layers of anti-c's to help limit contamination in the place designated to remove the clothes. For example, if two layers of clothes are worn, the first layer can be removed without threatening the contamination of clothes worn underneath.

Anti-c's protect the wearer from radioactive contamination and some forms of radiation

Radiation

In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...

. Although gamma ray

Gamma ray

Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays or hyphenated as gamma-rays and denoted as γ, is electromagnetic radiation of high frequency . Gamma rays are usually naturally produced on Earth by decay of high energy states in atomic nuclei...

s cannot be attenuated by clothing, alpha particles can be stopped and beta particles can be somewhat blocked by a layer of clothing.

Sports

Protective clothing is also worn for contact sports, such as ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

and American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

. Baseball players wear sliding shorts and a cup under their pants. See baseball clothing and equipment

Baseball clothing and equipment

Bat : A rounded, solid wooden or hollow aluminum bat. Wooden bats are traditionally made from ash wood, though maple and bamboo is also sometimes used. Aluminum bats are not permitted in professional leagues, but are frequently used in amateur leagues. Composite bats are also available,...

, cuirass

Cuirass

A cuirass is a piece of armour, formed of a single or multiple pieces of metal or other rigid material, which covers the front of the torso...

, goalie mask

Goalie mask

A goaltender mask, commonly referred to as a goalie mask or a hockey mask, is a mask worn by ice hockey, inline hockey, and field hockey goaltenders to protect the head from injury. Jacques Plante was the first goaltender to create and use a practical mask in 1959. Plante's mask was a piece of...

, jockstrap

Jockstrap

A jockstrap is an undergarment designed for supporting the male genitalia during sports or other vigorous physical activity...

. Law in many countries requires protective headgear

Headgear

Headgear, headwear or headdress is the name given to any element of clothing which is worn on one's head.Headgear serve a variety of purposes:...

and eyewear

Eye protection

Eye protection is protective gear for the eyes, which comes in many types depending upon the threat that is to be reduced. The threats can be particles, light, wind blast, heat, sea spray or some type of ball or puck used in sports...

for riding a motorcycle

Motorcycle

A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...

Susceptible to injury protection

Helmets have been custom made for those with cranial injuries or abnormalities to avoid potential brain damage.

Respiratory protection

Respirators such as "gas mask

Gas mask

A gas mask is a mask put on over the face to protect the wearer from inhaling airborne pollutants and toxic gases. The mask forms a sealed cover over the nose and mouth, but may also cover the eyes and other vulnerable soft tissues of the face. Some gas masks are also respirators, though the word...

s" and particulate respirators

Respirator

A respirator is a device designed to protect the wearer from inhaling harmful dusts, fumes, vapors, or gases. Respirators come in a wide range of types and sizes used by the military, private industry, and the public...

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 (SCUBA). In work environments, respirators are used when adequate ventilation is not available or other engineering control systems are not feasible.

In the United Kingdom, an organization that has extensive expertise in respiratory protective equipment is the Institute of Occupational Medicine

Institute of Occupational Medicine

The Institute of Occupational Medicine was founded in 1969 by the National Coal Board as an independent charity. The IOM is a major independent centre of scientific excellence in the fields of occupational health and environmental health, occupational hygiene and occupational safety...

. This expertise has been built on a long-standing and varied research programme that has included the setting of workplace protection factors to the assessment of efficacy of masks available through high street retail outlets.

Sets of equipment

Chainsaw
Chainsaw
A chainsaw is a portable mechanical saw, powered by electricity, compressed air, hydraulic power, or most commonly a two-stroke engine...

protection (especially a helmet with face guard, hearing protection, kevlar
Kevlar
Kevlar is the registered trademark for a para-aramid synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed at DuPont in 1965, this high strength material was first commercially used in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires...

chaps
Chaps
Chaps are sturdy coverings for the legs consisting of leggings and a belt. They are buckled on over trousers with the chaps' integrated belt, but unlike trousers they have no seat and are not joined at the crotch. They are designed to provide protection for the legs and are usually made of leather...

, anti-vibration gloves, and chainsaw safety boots). Specific information about chainsaw protection is given in the chainsaw safety clothing
Chainsaw safety clothing
Regulations generally recommend that chainsaw users wear protective clothing, also known as Personal Protective Equipment or PPE, while operating chainsaws...

article.
Bee keepers
Beekeeping
Beekeeping is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans. A beekeeper keeps bees in order to collect honey and other products of the hive , to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers...

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 glove
Leather glove
A leather glove is a fitted covering for the hand with a separate sheath for each finger and the thumb. This covering is composed of the tanned hide of an animal , though it is not uncommon in recent years for the leather to be synthetic.- Common uses :A common use for leather gloves is sporting...

s 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
Diving equipment
Diving equipment is equipment used by underwater divers for the purpose of facilitating diving activities. This may be equipment primarily intended for this purpose, or equipment intended for other puprposes which is found to be suitable for diving use....

(scuba gear)

Other personal protective equipment

Lifejacket
Lifejacket
A lifejacket is a type of personal flotation device designed to keep your airway clear of the water whether the wearer is conscious or unconscious...
Hardhat mounted mirrors
Fall-arrest equipment (i.e., if someone falls, to stop the fall without injury)
Safety leash (to keep a snowboard
Snowboard
Snowboards are boards, usually with a width the length of one's foot, with the ability to glide on snow. Snowboards are differentiated from monoskis by the stance of the user...

or surfboard
Surfboard
A surfboard is an elongated platform used in the sport of surfing. Surfboards are relatively light, but are strong enough to support an individual standing on them while riding a breaking wave...

within reach)
Warning equipment: flashing lights, reflective strips, reflectors, etc.
High-visibility clothing
High-visibility clothing
High-visibility clothing, a type of personal protective equipment , is any clothing worn that has highly reflective properties or a colour that is easily discernible from any background. Yellow waistcoats worn by emergency services are a common example....

(to ensure visibility to prevent accidents)

Materials

Common protective materials include Nomex

Nomex

Nomex is a registered trademark for flame resistant meta-aramid material developed in the early 1960s by DuPont and first marketed in 1967.- Properties:...

and Kevlar

Kevlar

Kevlar is the registered trademark for a para-aramid synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed at DuPont in 1965, this high strength material was first commercially used in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires...

. Another material often used in PPE, is SuperFabric

SuperFabric

SuperFabric is a cut and abrasion resistant material, and a registered trademark of Higher Dimension Materials, Inc. As a technical fabric, SuperFabric is created with a base fabric such as nylon, polyester, neoprene, crepe, etc. and is overlaid with tiny, hard guard plates in a specific pattern...