Safety Equipment for Instructors and Overseers: Protective Gloves
Protecting Your Hands in the Green Industry: Choosing the Right Gloves for the Job
Working in the green industry can be rewarding, but it's essential to prioritise safety, especially when it comes to hand protection. Mills, lathes, moving conveyors, and power-take-off (PTO) shafts pose a risk of amputation if you don't wear gloves. However, it's not just about any glove – choosing the right one for the task at hand is crucial.
Protection Against Cuts and Abrasions
Bamboo fiber gloves and coated palm gloves offer excellent protection against cuts and abrasions. Bamboo gloves, 10 times stronger than cotton/nylon, are flexible, moisture-wicking, UV protective, and biodegradable, making them suitable for garden and landscaping tasks requiring dexterity and protection. Coated palm gloves, with nitrile or polyurethane coatings, provide abrasion resistance and a good grip, ideal for assembly, painting, or heavy work tasks.
Chemical Protection
When handling chemicals like solvents and primers, nitrile gloves are effective for short-term exposure and provide good resistance to many chemicals, including acids and bases. For prolonged or repeated chemical exposure, gloves made of butyl rubber or polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) are recommended. PVA gloves are suitable for aromatic and aliphatic solvents. For long-term exposure or spills, PE laminated gloves can be used as under-gloves to improve protection.
Specialty Gloves
Neoprene gloves offer excellent resistance to acids, bases, and alcohols, are latex-free (reducing allergy risk), and have features like textured fingertips and beaded cuffs for a secure fit. These are useful for wet or dry work environments involving chemicals.
Situations When Gloves Should Not Be Used
While gloves can provide valuable protection, they should not be used when their use may pose a safety hazard, such as when working near moving machinery or entanglement hazards where gloves can get caught, leading to injury. Gloves that have been compromised (damaged, torn, or chemically degraded) should be disposed of immediately to prevent exposure. Using gloves in environments where tactile sensitivity is critical and gloves significantly reduce dexterity could be unsafe.
Other Protective Gloves
Leather gloves protect against handling rough objects like stones or wood chips, stones thrown up while mowing, chips or splinters from sawing, sparks from welding or grinding, and moderate heat from equipment. Metal mesh and Kevlar knit gloves prevent cuts from sharp objects like knives, blades, cutter bars when cutting, sharpening, mowing, trimming.
Employer Responsibilities and Maintenance
The employer is responsible for determining how long gloves can be worn and if they are reusable, but employees should inform the employer if they feel their gloves should be replaced. Proper glove maintenance and timely replacement are crucial to maintain protection.
Summary
No single glove type covers all hazards perfectly in the green industry; combinations or layering (e.g., chemical glove under abrasion glove) are sometimes necessary depending on specific tasks. By choosing the right gloves for the job and maintaining them properly, you can ensure effective protection while maintaining safety and comfort standards.
[1] Bamboo fiber gloves: [https://www.bamboogloves.com/pages/bamboo-gloves-for-gardening-and-landscaping] [2] Chemical protection: [https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/chemicalprotection/gloves/index.html] [3] Coated palm gloves: [https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/16209-choosing-the-right-gloves-for-the-job] [4] Neoprene gloves: [https://www.globalsafetyfirst.com/gloves/neoprene-gloves/]
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