If you are selling food in the hawker center or food court, do you need to wear gloves to prepare and serve the food to your customers?

Many times, we eat at coffee shop or hawker stall, the same person who serve us food with bare hands also receives cash from us with bare hands.  How would you feel? I am sure you have seen how your order is being served especially when you are eating at a hawker stall. Do you think that they should wear a pair of gloves so that their bare hands do not touch the food?

Many people think that cash (currency notes or coins) is most dirty because everybody handles cash with bare hands. Passing over hundreds or thousands of people’s hand, you can imagine how dirty it can be.

How would you then expect your orders be handled?  You may feel that it will be best that the hands that serve you food wear a pair of hand gloves.  However, can you be sure that the gloves are clean?  What if while he has just prepared your order wearing the same pair of gloves and during the preparation, he may have touched raw meat? Or he has just received cash from other customers without taking off the same pair of gloves? Or even worse, what if he has not changed his hand gloves since he started working at the stall that morning? The gloves may not be clean and can be even dirtier than bare hands.  If not gloves, would you rather prefer him to wash his hands before he brought you the food you have ordered?

Thus, wearing a pair of hand gloves does not guarantee cleanliness.  And let’s talk about food safety. Are you sure the hand gloves he is wearing are safe for handling food? Not all gloves are food safe unless they have compliance with accepted standards such as American FDA (Food & Drug Authority) food handling requirements.  Many gloves may release unsafe materials to the food.

The key question, as far as food sellers are concerned, is how to prepare and deliver food to the customer’s table so that the food is delicious, nutritious and safe for their consumption?  There is no standard procedure to achieve that for every food stall.  It all depends on how the food is prepared and served.

Let us take a chicken rice seller as an example and start from the kitchen.  Assuming that the kitchen is clean and foods are processed following Good Manufacturing Process. Our discussion here is, do they need to wear hand gloves in preparing the raw chicken before putting it to the pot for cooking?

The answer could either be “Yes” or “No”.

Washing your hand before cleaning the chicken is all you need while preparing the raw chicken for cooking. You do not need to wear hand glove to keep the chicken clean unless you want to protect your hands from the wet work.  I would put on a pair of dry and clean hand gloves if I am going to wash and clean a lot of chicken for quite a long time as I do not want to get eczema or nail-bed disorders due to fungal and bacterial growth. Wearing a pair of impermeable hand glove will protect my hands from the water and animal fats while I am washing and preparing the chicken for cooking. However, my hands may still be wet and macerated due to sweating. I have to keep my hands dry by regularly drying my hands and my gloves because a sweating hand inside the warm rubber glove is also a perfect environment for bacterial and fungal growth, causing skin diseases like eczema.

So, what happens if your hands sweat profusely in the gloves? Does that mean wearing gloves may not be the answer to protect your hand from wet works? Does that mean you have no choice but to do the washing and cleaning with bare hands and contract skin diseases in long run? No need to worry, there is a solution. If you opt to wear gloves, you can apply sweat reducing hand cream or lotion to your hands before wearing gloves.  If you opt not to wear gloves, you can apply water repelling hand cream (it must be food safe of course) to your hands, instead of wearing hand gloves, before starting the cleaning works.  Such hand cream could protect your hands from the water or animal fat also but you have to re-apply after a few hours.

Now, let’s get back to the chicken rice business. After cleaning the chickens, you cook them.  I presume that the temperature you use to cook them will kill all germs present in the raw chickens.

After cooking the chickens, some chefs they cool the chicken in cold water to give the chicken meat nice texture. Most chicken rice are served with the cold chicken. You can see in the chicken rice shop that somewhere near the person who is chopping the chicken into pieces, the whole cooked and cold chickens are hung on hooks and arranged nicely in row waiting to be chopped.

During handling of the cold chicken, until they were chopped into pieces and served on a dinner plate with rice to the customer’s table, the hands must be cleaned thoroughly with hand soap if you prefer to use your bare hands.  Frequent and repeated washing of hands may be necessary if you are doing something else that possibly cause your hands to be contaminated.  Also, make sure that there is no wound or any kind of skin disease on your hands.

If you do not want to wash your hand too many times (repeat washing hands too many times with hand soap can be worse than wearing hand gloves in term of eczema) or it is just not practical, then you have to wear hand gloves.

You can wear either disposable (single use) or reusable type of hand gloves.  They must be food safe (safe for food handling).

The most common disposable hand gloves are either made of 100% natural latex rubber or 100% nitrile (a synthetic rubber) rubber.  Single-use (disposable) hand gloves give best dexterity but limited hand protection because they are thin as compared to the reusable types. The reusable gloves on the other hand are thicker giving better protection to hand. Many, however, find that they can not work effectively with the hand gloves. This is mainly because they are wearing the wrong size gloves, either too large or too small.

Allergic to protein contained in the natural latex is another problem. If you do develop skin allergy after wearing the natural latex gloves, try the nitrile.  There are however increasing reports now on allergy to nitrile glove.  You can choose gloves made of some other materials.

For the cold (cooked) chicken handling, disposable types would be better than the reusable because first of all you do not need a high level of protection to your hand. The main purpose of wearing the disposable gloves is to prevent food contamination by hands.  Disposable gives the best level of dexterity because most of them are skin-tight like Doctor wearing their surgical gloves.

Remember to change the disposable gloves once broken.  Disposable latex gloves are quite easily torn or broken due to abrasion.  Nitrile glove has a higher level of resistance to puncture and abrasion.  Nitrile gloves however may cost you more than the latex gloves.

Wearing a pair of broken or torn gloves will not be safe for both hand and food. Take them off immediately, wash your hand with hand soap, dry them and put on a new pair of hand gloves.

One last thing, do not forget to wash your hands with gloves if you are doing something else that may contaminate the hand gloves.  If they are disposables, you may as well change a new pair. Unless you keep your hand gloves clean at all time, wearing hand gloves does not guarantee food safety.

It is therefore a matter of choice and that is absolutely your discretion.  The primary purpose of wearing hand gloves is in fact to protect hands.  You should put gloves on if you need hand protection in whatever you do.  If hand protection is not necessary, you can use bare hands.  Frequent washing hands with hand soap could be more effective than wearing gloves and it is absolutely perfect to handle food with bare hands if your hands are clean.  However, if you do not want to wash your hands too many times to make your hands vulnerable to microbial infection, you have no choice but to wear gloves. If you do that, you have to make sure the gloves on your hands are kept clean at all times during the process of food preparation and serving to your customers.

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How many, however, are really putting SAFETY FIRST in their works? In the construction sites, unfortunately, many of them do not.  Many workers do not wear safety shoes (perhaps except the engineers and may be the supervisors).

It is also not uncommon seeing workers working at height do not wear safety harness for fall protection.  Many of them do wear safety helmet, nowadays, but I believe most of them do not wear them properly according to safety standard. Do you know that the helmet will not give you maximum protection if you do not wear them properly? And do you know how to wear your safety helmet safely?

Recently, I visited a local educational institute.  In a practical class, students were learning using drilling and cutting machines.  You know what?  Only one of them was wearing safety glasses.  At first I thought may be safety glasses were not given to them. But then I saw a box at the center of the table.  In the box there are the safety glasses.

Later on, I found out from the class-in-charge that safety glasses was given to all of them and safety briefing was in fact given to all the students, by the lecturer, when they came to attend the first practical class.

Why then that the students were not wearing the safety glasses when they were using the drilling and cutting machines?

Knowing the problem, the class-in-charge took the box and asked the students to put on the safety glasses.  Some did as they are told but still many did not follow the instruction.

As far as safety is concerned, especially for the students who enrolled to the course learning how to use drilling and cutting machines, for example, safety must be emphasized in the first place.  The students should be all wearing the safety glasses before they were allowed to handle or to move near to see the demonstrations.

As most of the students were still not wearing the safety glasses even after the class-in-charge took the box and asked them to put them on.  I doubted the effectiveness of the safety briefing given to the students when they attended the first class.

I do not think that the students should be blamed for not wearing the safety glasses in this case.

After some discussion with the officer who was in charge of the safety of the practical classes, I was asked for my opinions on how to improve the safety standards of the class.

First I told them it is not at all difficult to impose safety regulations or rules to the students.  They should be taught not only the skills they need for their future careers but the safety aspects too.  At this point, I strongly recommended that safety should be included to the learning syllabus.

I recommended that a safety program should be written and implemented.  The program should at least include:

1. The name of the program, for example, “Eye protection program for practical Lab Class”.
2. Purpose of the program
3. The program administrator – who shall run the program
4. Identification and risk assessment of hazards
5. Engineering and structural controls
6. Existing safety procedures, if any
7. Additional safety procedures needed, if any
8. Selection of PPE – criteria of selection, market survey, potential suppliers.
9. Training –  Selection, use of PPE, maintenance etc,
10. Maintenance and house keeping
11. Motivation – how to answer and entertain complains
12. Record keeping and monitoring of the program

After running the program, every one concerned will know exactly what they should know and should do when they attend the class.  When the students came for the class, they will receive a pair of safety glasses in a clean and good working condition. (Wearing a pair of glasses with scratches and stains will impair visions and cause accident.) An officer-in-charge shall be there to give each student the glasses when they enter the classroom..

There should be a safety glasses cleaning and maintenance program too that includes:

1. After each class, the safety glasses should be returned for checking and cleaning.
2. Damaged glasses should be discarded and replaced.
3. Cleaning procedure and anti-fog application
4. The safety glasses after cleaning should be kept in box or cabinet away from dust and chemicals.

More than one model or sizes of safety glasses may be made available to provide best facial fitting to the students for maximum comfort and safety.  It may be good to see everyone, tall or short, thin or fat, wearing only one type or model of safety glasses for the sack of uniformity despite of the differences in facial configurations.  A pairs of nice looking glasses fitted well on your face may not suit me because I have a smaller or flatter nose.  The glasses will drop and most likely rest and press on my cheek. Not only uncomfortable or pain on my cheek, the glasses may not give me the protection I need.

The written safety program must be made clearly known to all concerned and written in easy to understand language.  It should be accessible to all.

Knowing that safety is part of their learning syllabus and what to do exactly when they are coming for the class, I believe that the student will all comply with the requirement and wear their safety glasses at all time.  They should feel comfortable after learning to accept certain degree of discomfort for the sake of safety.  They will not complain any more because their complaints on discomfort are all being entertained and well answered.

On the other hand, the officer in charge is happy because his job is done.

Everyone, the students, the lecturer, the class-in-charge and even me as a supplier of the safety glasses will be happy because there is a WRITTEN safety program running.

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The accident happened when she saw something not supposed to be in the processing line, spontaneously, she used her fingers to pick it up.

She might have been doing the same thing in the past quite a few times and no one has ever warned her about the danger of doing that.

This time, however, she was not so lucky. Her fingers somehow were caught in between the moving blades and without knowing what was happening, her hand was pulled in and cut off by the moving blades.

This scenery may not entirely be imaginative.  Similar incidents could have happened in your area.

The story goes on. Knowing the operator’s family well, the factory manager has a real difficult time to tell her father who feels proud about his young daughter.  Although there is compensation from the workers’ insurance, the girl has to live a life from now on with only her left hand.

Investigation subsequently may review that the operator has not attain safety training course while working in the factory because the company does not have a written safety training program. It is not uncommon among many factories that safety training will only be given once in a while to fulfill the requirements imposed by the local authorities.

How do you feel, if this tragedy happen to you or on someone you dearly love?

Such accident could have been avoidable if

1. There is a guard on the moving blade making it inaccessible by hand.

2. There is a warning safety sign – Danger, moving blades, no hand!

3. There is safety training program running to train her before she starts working. There are also subsequent refreshment trainings to refresh her safety awareness and alert.

Many things, you just can not learn by mistake. It is just too costly and painful.

So, if you are a fresh school leaver or graduate, joining a factory or workshop, anxiously looking forward to build your career in the organization, you must attain all the safety training courses provided by the company, if your employer does provide such trainings. If they do not, ask for it. You simple do not want any accident happens on you.

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It could be very good to see everyone is uniformly using only one type. The ESH (Environment, Safety & Health) Officers or Managers feel that when the employees are not given choices, there will be less noise (such as asking for model they preferred or complaints). It is easier for inventory control too.

However, is it a good practice as far as safety is concerned?

Let us take safety eyewear for eye protection as an example. Safety eyewear including goggles and glasses must be fitted well for the protection required. A loosely fitted pairs of glasses will drop and rest on the cheek exposing eyes to the danger of impact or splash. They might cause discomfort or vision distortion thus becoming a safety or health hazard.

Modern safety glasses come with different shapes and sizes.  The classical models are made of two lenses with metal or plastic frame. Most of the contemporary models are made of one piece polycarbonate lens. The nose gap can be wider or narrower.  The nose pad can be hard plastic or soft rubber.  The side shield can be a detachable piece or molded to the lens.  The temple arms can be fixed or adjustable in length and angle. The lenses colors can be clear, grey, amber or green with various shades.  The rich varieties give us plenty of choices to select one that fits best to our faces in term of comfort and styles beside the protection we need.

A pairs of glasses fitted well to a person with high nose bridge may not be fitted well to a person with low nose bridge or flat nose.  They must be given a choice to choose one best fitted to their faces. Moreover, there should be some one who is authorized to issue and fit the glasses for them.  Safety goggles need to be fit-tested too before issuing them to the users. A loose pair of goggles with gap at the forehead area will not give protection to the eyes when there is a splash to the face.  Choose one that fit best to the face.

Same thing commonly happened to safety shoes.  Most factories do not have a written foot protection program.  Normally, only one brand, one model will be selected for all the workers. To them wearing safety shoes is all they need to protect their feet. On the other hand, I believe, there are something else they need to do to protect they feet to increase productivity and to reduce cost in long run. If you have a few hundreds worker and each giving a pair of safety shoes free, you should consider seriously to write and run you own foot protection program.

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Image copy from www,jniosh.go.jp/icpro/jicosh-old/English/cases/cases/case34.htm

I quote the title of this article from the Safety and Health information bulletin SHIB 09-18-2006, “Hazards of Unintended Movement of Dump Truck Body Beds” from website “www.osha.gov/dts/shib/shib091806.html”, published by U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

News cut – Sin Chew Daily, 25 February 2011

News extracted from Borneo Post, “A young mechanic was crushed to death by the bucket of the lorry he was repairing…….His co-workers Nelson sustained light injuries on his right arm as he managed to get away when the bucket collapsed…..”.

If you have read the bulletin, then you would realize that what happened on the 24^th February 2011 in Miri , Sarawak that cost a young 32 years old mechanic’s life is a safety problem.  The SHIB 09-18-2006 bulletin said the USA Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had indentified “31 accidents during the past 10 years”.

31 cases in 10 years were not many but the bulletin said “Nearly all of the accidents resulted in fatalities”. Just like this case in Miri.

I do not know how many cases there were in Sarawak in the past 10 years.  I believe not many, but when it happens, it could be fatal, like this one.

The question now is – if it is a safety problem, can it be prevented?

Yes, it can be prevented if you understand the Lock-out and Tag-out System.  When the dump truck bed is raised up (by whatever means), there is kinetic energy stored on the dump truck bed.  When it come down (by whatever causes), the kinetic energy is released.  The raised dump truck bed must be propped, blocked and tagged to prevent any possible unintended movement (lowering down or descending) of the dump truck bed to release the kinetic energy that is being stored.

How to prop, block and tag the dump truck bed?  Read the SHIB 09-18-2006 bulletin.

If I were a mechanic attempting to repair something underneath the raised dump truck bed, I will not place myself in danger unless the raised bed is securely propped, blocked and tagged.  I will use the original body prop provided by the car manufacturer, or the “Engineered truck bed brace brackets” as shown in the bulletin to block the raised bed.  I will not use any make-shift or temporary device as a block. At the meantime, Lock-out device and warning Tag will be used to ensure that while repairing work underneath the dump truck bed is going on,  there is absolutely no unauthorized action in the truck cabin to release the stored kinetic energy (to descend or cause to descend the dump truck bed).  It will insist, if any one of these is not done, I will not place myself in between the raised truck bed and the truck body to do any repair works, even if I am ordered to do so.

If I am an officer managing a workshop repairing dump truck, I will learn and train all my mechanics about the LOTO (Lock-Out, Tag-Out) system and observe the “Safety First” rules.  I will find out how to make the truck bed brace brackets to make sure that accident will have no chance to happen in my workshop.

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Unless strictly required by works, most people do not like to wear hand gloves for their works. In most cases, they do not want to wear hand gloves because of the following reasons:

1. It is hot and wet inside, very uncomfortable.
2. They can not work with gloves. They make hands clumsy.

It is true that in tropical country like ours, it is always hot and humid.  Our hands sweat in the gloves.  It can be very uncomfortable particularly when you are wearing impermeable rubber gloves.  This is something we can not do much to improve the problem.  I shall talk about this in my next articles.

For the second reasons, in most cases, it is due to glove sizes too large or too small – the fitting problem.  Many people overlook this and they just wear what they are given or what are available.

Like wearing a pair of shoes, you must wear a pair of well fitted gloves for comfort and safety.  The reasons are simple.  Wearing gloves too small will cause fatigue to the hands.  Too large causes your hands losing dexterity and sensitivity.  Loose edges or extra length at finger tips are dangerous – they can easily get caught on moving parts of the machine.

Although losing some dexterity and sensitivity is inevitable, you can minimize these side effects by paying attention to selecting

1. The right type of gloves (for your job) and
2. The right size that fit best to your hands.

It can be done because there are so many types of hand gloves in the market.  You can always find one best suit for your job and best fitted to your hands.

For example, if I am a mechanic repairing automobile and a lot of time handling small parts, I would like to have a pair of hand gloves with the following qualities:

1. They must fit well to my hands with no loose edges and extra length at finger tips.  Skin tight will be best.
2. They must be thick or tough enough to protect my hands from cuts or other mechanical injuries but not too thick to loose the dexterity I need to handle small parts like nuts.
3. I should feel confident in using small hand tools.
4. They must be able to protect my hand from the hazardous oils and grease.

Can you find this type of gloves in the market? Yes, definitely. They are available.  Although they may cost you more, you should provide a budget in your expenditure.

Remember, like many other things in life, there is always a cost to pay for the quality of life and the protection you needed.

If you do not want to spend on the gloves, then, you will expose you bare hands to all the potential hazards you may be facing while performing your works.

Put your risks on one side of the balance and costs on the other side.  The choice is yours of course….

How to find the right size?

Use a flexible measuring tape around the knuckles of your right hand, if you are right-handed, left hand if you are left-handed.  If the measurement is 8 inches, your glove size should be 8 or medium. If it is between 8 and 9, it should be size 9 or large.

The final fitting of course will be donning the gloves onto your hands to see if they fit well.  Close you hand, you should not feel too tight.  There must not be loose edges or extra length at the finger tips.  You should feel comfortable and confident holding tools like spanners. Try to pick up small parts like nuts. If they do not provide the dexterity you need, discard them and try another brand or type of gloves until you find one that fits best to your hand.

Not many employers will provide choices of hand gloves for individual fitting. For critical works, they may have to do so.

Remember, some patient and practices are all you needed to train yourself in using hand glove.  At the beginning, you may feel that you can not work with hand gloves.  If you persist, you will appreciate hand gloves that are keeping your hand clean and one day you will feel that you can not work without hand gloves.

A word of tip: If your hands sweat in the gloves, you can wear a glove liner or apply hand lotion that reduce sweating.

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Unfortunately, it is not uncommon, during my visits to factory, to find that not everyone using respirator has the face piece fitted well and many of them did not go through the fitting procedure to ensure proper fitting.  I have in some occasions even seeing people wearing respirator upside down.  I asked him “Why are you wearing your respiratory this way?” He told me, “This way I feel more comfortable…..”  You may laugh, but I don’t because it is a serious mistake to wear respirator like that and the result could be fatal in a critical environment.

Remember, you must be trained to do positive and negative test when you are donning a respirator the first time onto your face.  These qualitative tests will ensure that there is no leakage from the sides of the respirator face piece. You must do these tests whenever you wear a respirator and before you entering the contaminated area.

Why fit test is important? Because you want the air you are breathing in to pass through the air-purifying filters or cartridge that will remove the harmful pollutants.  You do not want un-filtered polluted air to leak into your respirator face piece.  If after fit test, you can not get a air-tight fitting, you should try some other models of respirator or another size. Respirator face piece does come in different sizes, S, M or L although the medium size can fit well to the majority of the population.

Respirator face piece fit test is critical important for SCBA donning and in fact for wearing any respirator before entering into critical environment.  Safety Supervisor must make sure that every one using respirator especially the ERT (Emergency Response Team) members are well trained.  Negative and positive fit test of respirator face piece can be done you self without help from some one else, if you know how to do it.

Is fit testing difficult? Absolutely NOT and on the contrary, it is quite simple.

One of my friend’s sons has started working in a car body repairing workshop recently.  His works include metal cutting, cleaning, welding and even paint spraying.   He came to see me for safety advice because he is not receiving safety training in his work. He felt disappointed after talking to me because he was not given the basic safety gear for his works I told him that he has the right to ask for them and if the employer does not provide him with all the safety equipment and training he needs, don’t work for him.

Will you do the same if you were him?  If you walk into the workshops and factories in your town, do you see these things around?

Remember, earning a living does not means checking in your health or life for it and there is existing laws protecting you.

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Introduction:

Many Sarawakian’s first experience seeing people wearing facemask on the streets started some years ago when the air was filled with thick haze generated from open-air burnings related to bush fires or land clearing agricultural activities. People were seen wearing various types of disposable facemasks including the single use paper dust masks, surgical masks and home made washable fabric masks to protect them from breathing in the polluted air particles.  I believed that many of them in face did not know what to wear for the haze.  They used whatever was available.

Were they protected from the hazy air? I did not think so because these disposable facemasks are not good enough to filter the airborne fine carbon particles.  Instead, N95 (American mask ratings) and FFP2 (European mask ratings) are the lowest types of dust masks that should be used to filter the hazy pollutant. But most people do not know what are N95 and FFP2.

Not only that, many who are working in the dusty workplaces do not know too what to choose for their respiratory protection.

This article shall explain to you some of the basics on disposable dust masks. You will know more about the masks you are wearing or how to select the right types of mask for the protection you need.

Disposable filtering dust masks:

Disposable filtering dust masks are widely used today for various purposes, for example:

• For personal hygiene
• In occupation safety – for respiratory protection against dusts and mists
• In clinical and medical uses – for disease prevention
• In clean room operation and for food safety – for human contamination control

US-NIOSH (United States – National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health) together with CDC (Centers for Disease Control) recommended the surgical mask and N95 respirator mask for H1N1 flu prevention in conjunction with other personal hygienic practices such as washing hands.

Types of disposable filtering dust masks:

To avoid confusion, US-NIOSH categorized commercial available disposable dust masks in 2 major groups – the facemasks and respirator masks.

(A). Facemasks

(A1). Paper masks

(A2). SBPP facemasks

(B). Respirator masks

(B1). American Ratings – N95, N99, R95, R99, N100, P100 etc

(B2). European Ratings – FFP1, FFP3, FFP3 etc

Their functions and limitations are described below:

(A). Facemasks

(A1). Paper masks

One of the most common paper masks selling in the local market is the Nurse Brand 1-ply and 2-ply single use paper mask (with elastic ear loops) packed in 100 pieces per dispenser box. They are cheap and widely used in clinic as single use disposable mask for personal hygiene.

We have customers in the beverages and food processing industry   using them for human contamination control.

As they are made of thin paper, they are useless when wet and can be torn easily.  They will burst when you sneeze or cough. They are not suitable for industrial usage and not for haze or H1N1 flu.

Unfortunately, when our air was filled with haze, many people were given and wore this type of mask when they went out-door.  They thought they were protected but they were not.

(A2). SBPP masks

Made of SBPP (Spunbond Polypropylene) fabric with elastic ear loops, elastic head loops or non-elastic head ties, they are more durable and resistant to wetness than the paper facemasks. They made in green, blue, pink or white color. There are 2-ply or 3-ply SBPP masks and are commonly known as surgical masks.

SBPP masks are used for

• Clinical and surgical mask
• Personal hygiene
• For clean-room operation
• For food safety

They are pack in 50 pieces per bag or per dispenser box.

US-NIOSH together with CDC recommended wearing 3-ply surgical mask for H1N1 prevention. (See my earlier articles “Correct use of facemask or respirator for influenza prevention”)

SBPP 2-ply and 3-ply mask, however, are not recommended for toxic industrial dusts or chemical dusts or for mists that produce toxic vapors.  They do not give adequate protection against haze that consists of mainly fine carbon particles.

(B). Respirator masks

(B1). The American Ratings

For locals, the best known disposable respirator mask is perhaps the N95 mask because of their heavy advertisements when haze first attacked our countries many years ago.  N95 is American NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health) rating given to filtering dust masks that capture at least 95% of the airborne particles (0.3 micron in size or larger) used in the testing.

There are 7 classes of respirator mask given by American NIOSH:

Table extracted from NIOSH web page http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/topics/respirators/disp_part/default.html

N95, N99, N100 – Used for water based dust and water based mist only; not for oil based dust and oil based mist.

R95, P95, P99 and P100 – Can be used for both water based and oil based dust and mist.

N100 and P100 are HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air filters that will remove at least 99.97% of airborne particles 0.3 micron in diameter or larger.

(C2). The European Ratings:

European countries have their own set of Ratings for dust masks.  They are

• FFP1 (Low efficiency)
• FFP2 (Medium efficiency)
• FFP3 (High efficiency)

In European countries, only masks in compliance with EC Directive 89/686 (such as FFP2 and FFP3) are recommended for respiratory protection against airborne particles such as H1N1 flu virus.  Disposable nuisance dust masks and 3-ply SBPP Surgical masks do not carry EC markings are not recommended for H1N1 because they do not comply with this legislation.

WHO (World Health Organization) recommended wearing FFP2 mask as precautionary measure when no H1N1 infection is indicated.  For H1N1 caretakers (including handling infected animals), FFP3 masks are recommended.

US-NIOSH together with CDC recommended the surgical mask for precautionary measure when no infection is indicated.  For H1N1 caretakers (including handling of infected animals), N95, N99 or P100 masks are recommended.

Disposable respirator masks for occupational safety

Disposable dust masks should not be used for occupational safety.  They are not efficient filter to protect our respiratory organs from harmful dusts and fume.

You should read recommendation on respirators or masks from product labels or MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) and only those carry American or European Ratings or other international markings should be used for occupational safety. One of the most basic rules you must remember is that they must not be used in oxygen deficient condition (when and where oxygen is too low to sustain life).

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You attended a project meeting in the large meeting room.  The meeting was chaired by a soft-spoken lady who seated at the far end of the long meeting table.  She did not use a microphone as usual for this kind of meeting.

Being a responsible subordinate, you listened with your full attention and carefully took down all notes you needed. During the briefing, in some points, you did have some difficulties in catching what she said but you managed to write them down.

You believed that you have taken down all you needed and left the meeting room happily without verifying with her because she was busy.

Following her instruction given in the briefing, you started doing your parts in the project.

However, when she came inspecting your job later, she pointed out mistakes you have made.  You wondered because everything you have done is exactly according to what she has instructed in the meeting.  You tried to explain but she insisted that you were making mistakes.

You became very upset and just did not understand why she behaved like that?

Do you know what the problem is?

If you were a manager and found that one of your subordinates was making mistake. He insisted that he was following your instruction that day given to him in the meeting room at some distance.

What do you think then the problem is?

This scenario is in fact not uncommon and it could be costly or even fetal in the extreme cases.

Why?

Most likely, you, or your subordinate in the later case, are having some problem in hearing.  In other words, you or he could be having some hearing loss due to some reasons. In the case with the soft spoken lady as chair person in the meeting, you though you have taken down all accordingly but in fact you have not, because you could not hear all she said.  That was why you made mistake.

Who shall be blamed?

If I were to interview a person and I want to make sure he has no problem in taking down my instruction, I would send him for an audiometric test.  He will come back to me with his audiogram showing his hearing capability.  It sound very unusual but hearing loss is not uncommon nowadays due to noise in the workplace – not necessary in the factory.  If you are selling in an audio shop bombarding yourself every day with loud instrumental noises, I am sure you will have noise induced hearing loss if you work there long enough.  That noise induced hearing loss is permanent – what is lost is gone forever.

Unfortunately, many do not know that they are having hearing loss.

Are you one of them?

If your workplace is noisy and you have to raise your voice to talk to someone at the normal talking distance, you mostly likely need to wear hearing protection device to protect you from noise induced hearing loss.  The only way to know if you have hearing problem is to go for audiometric test.

If you are manager or safety officer, we need a hearing conservation program to make sure that every one working in the noisy areas are protected from hearing loss.

If you want some free training on hearing conservation program, please contact us here.

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In the cocoa plantation, we have harvesting workers who contracted cocoa pod harvesting work during the harvesting months. Harvesters were told to harvest only the ripening pods from the trees. The ripening pods must be yellow, red or purple in color. The unripe pods are green. Each harvester was using a pruning secateurs or harvesting tools with a sharp chisel blade and a hook.  The pods harvested by each harvester were piled up at the edge of the planting blocks near the road side for inspection and collection.

Although it is not uncommon to see some green pods harvested due to human error and the Field Conductor normally would alerted the harvesters for the mistakes. In most cases, such mistakes could be verified quickly and effectively.

In one of my regular inspection round, I found a particular pile with many green pods. The Field Conductor in-charged of the harvesting gang was asked for an explanation. The Conductor told me that he has reported the problem to his Supervisor and the harvester was told to harvest only the ripening yellow, red or purple pods.

I noticed that the green pods found in the pile were all in mature size. Immediately, I have the possible answer in my mind but I kept silent. I went into the cocoa block where this worker was harvesting the pods.  I found that there were still many ripening pods on the trees, most of the hidden behind the green or brown leaves, not harvested.  Many of them are yellow, red in colour but smaller in sizes.  This finding further confirmed my answer but I still kept quiet.

I called a meeting in that afternoon. The case was revealed to the Manger and the Assistants. To my surprise, they were all informed about the problem but none of them know the answer.

Being a Biologist as my academic background, I told them the harvester could be colour-blinded. The harvester was suspended from the harvesting job and sent to clinic for colour blindness checking.  Sure enough, he is colour-blinded.  He simply could not differentiate the red and green.  That is why he kept on harvesting the green pod – as long as they are big enough in size.  He must be having great difficulty to identify the ripening pods especially under the dense cocoa canopy with limited penetrating sunlight. Instead of selecting the colours, he went for sizes!

He was finally removed from the harvesting gang.

What will happen if a colour blinded person is not knowing his problem and driving a car facing the traffic light?  I wound be surprise that many people do not know that they are colour blinded unless they go for colour blindness testing.

What will happen if a colour blinded person is posted to a job that require him to act based on colour shown?  Would you send him for colour blindness checking first?

Another interesting story will be posted soon.

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