ANSI Safety Glasses

Analyzing Workplace Safety Needs for ANSI Safety Glasses

Wearing safety gear for your eyes is an essential component of Personal Protective Equipment at work. At the same time, one must ascertain the hazards at work in order to select the right equipment for work. Although experts agree that wearing safety gear for eyes can reduce injuries by 90%, wearing the wrong kind can be harmful as much as not wearing any protective gear. Thus, the need for accurate & careful assessment of workplace hazards must be fulfilled. This helps workers to keep their eyes protected according to the required level of safety assurance as prescribed by OHSA. You don’t want to buy the wrong piece of ANSI Safety Glasses which is ill-suited to your purpose. In the same vein, this article discusses how careful analysis of workplace hazards can lead to a better safety program implementation.

The make-up of Workplace Environment

Understanding the design of the place of your employment is a vital process. Firstly, it helps to discern the pitfalls which may cause eye injuries. It forces the management to take appropriate precautionary measures to reduce the risks by way of sound operational management. Is the area too crowded? Does the floor have a slope which may cause workers to slip? Are there certain areas which have a higher temperature than others? Such instances of questions can provide the depth of understanding hazards at your job. It helps greatly with the right type of ANSI Safety Glasses which makes your final list.

Assessing Environment for Lenses

Conditions such as lighting are extremely important. Lighting helps in deciding what kind of lenses you should get. If workers spend a lot of time outdoors in bright lights, they are better suited with lenses allowing for lower light transmission levels. If employees face difficulty seeing under low lights, remedial measures must be taken to restore the required lighting levels. High temperatures cause a certain level of radiation to prevail. Employers must then ensure that workers are not overly exposed to UVA & B types of rays. Prolonged exposure to UV rays can lead to long term vision loss & blindness in some cases. To counter this, always choose an industry-leading brand such as 3M. 3M incorporates polycarbonate lenses in their certified Protective Eyewear. The thermoplastic compound helps in staving off much of the radiation from entering the eyes. They are designed to provide great comfort and a visually aesthetic appeal as well.

Implementing Safety Programs

Do workers know where the emergency exit exists? Are they cognizant of First-Aid facilities available at their workstations? Important questions like make the safety of employees the responsibility of companies. Ensuring that workers who require vision correction must be provided with Prescription Safety Glasses which provide ample protection along with accurate vision. Employees often complain of not knowing exactly what kind of eyewear would suit their job. Hence, it is incumbent upon the companies to conduct regular safety training to ensure the safety of employees.

How ANSI Safety Glasses Keep You Safe On the Job

Workplace safety is of vital importance. The adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ is apt to quote here. However, workers still come across accidents resulting in eye injuries. According to the Vision Council, 2000 workers fall prey to eye injuries every day at work. Employers have to pay huge costs in terms of medical care & absenteeism of employees as a consequence. It’s important to discern why Personal Protective Equipment is so crucial at work & how it can keep your eyes intact. The best measure is to wear ANSI Safety Glasses to prevent devastating eye injuries. Experts agree that eye injuries can be reduced by almost one hundred percent by virtue of wearing eye protection at work. The very glasses must comply with the safety standards at the workplace for eyes as prescribed by OHSA. Also, ANSI Z787.1 Compliance is required to ensure foolproof protection against high impact accidents. This article discusses why there arises a need to wear safety at work and how it can be achieved by wearing suitable safety equipment.

Safety Hazards at Work

Varying industrial vocations pose their own set of risks to your eyes. The frequent acts of cutting, welding, melting, grinding, etc. involve fine particles and debris. Any foreign object such as bits of metal, shards, splinters, dust or small sediments can bring huge damage to your eyes. These are the most common causes of blunt trauma & lacerations in most of the cases. Splashes of toxic chemicals are also very common, especially for people working at science labs or foundries. Fumes are emitted from the liquid compound used in the process which can cause grave damage to your vision. Some environments pack a great amount of ambient heat which causes radiation to soar. Prolonged exposure to radiation indoors can do damage to the frontal lens of the eye. To name a few, cataracts or macular degeneration can cause vision loss in the long run. Also, exposure to UV rays also occurs when one spends long hours outside in the sun. The UV rays present in sunlight are likely to cause harm. Hence, the need for ANSI Safety Glasses is an indispensable one for all kinds of industrial workers.

Staying Safe at Work

The most obvious solution is to wear safety glasses but which one? Top brands offering protective equipment for workers to ensure ANSI compliance, which embodies shatterproof protection of lenses. For instance, 3M uses a polycarbonate compound in all of its industrial eyewear. It’s essentially a thermoplastic material which is three hundred times more durable than glass. Always ensure that your eyewear has that ANSI Z787.1 marking etched on the lenses. Polycarbonate lenses in protective eyewear also ensure complete protection against UV-A & B types of radiation. By & large, it’s important to choose a renowned brand, such as 3m, which offers a comprehensive level of protection against hazards on your job.

When to Buy a Fresh Pair of ANSI Safety Glasses

Protective eyeglasses are the most crucial protective gear in your arsenal of PPE. They serve an important function of protecting against varying hazards at the workplace. Maintaining a regular check on the health of your safety gear is imperative. Although rigorous cleaning & health check habits can ensure prolonged shelf life, there are times when your protective gear for eyes needs to be replaced. There are times when goggles need to be replaced with RX protective gear for eyes. It can be explained by the fact that overlay goggles may not be so comfortable to wear for prolonged hours. This article discusses some of the important points on why you may need a fresh pair of ANSI Safety Glasses.

Not the required type of Protective Equipment

Top brands offer a wide variety of eyewear that is tailored to befit your workplace safety needs. For instance, there are times when safety eyewear is not a suitable choice alone due to their design. There are many instances goggles are a better choice. For example, employees at danger of being exposed to splashes of toxic chemicals should wear protective goggles. They provide a greater surface area for protection as compared to glasses alone. However, this can also happen vice versa. Workers may find safety goggles a bit clunky or uncomfortable. This can be problematic if a person has vision correction problems. This is best accommodated by choosing RX Safety Glasses which incorporate prescription with safety. Thus, there are times when existing PPE is not suited for the job at hand.

Unsuitable Lenses

Lenses are often coated to perform a certain set of functions. One example involves Anti-fogging lenses. Basically, they are coated with an anti-fogging film in order to prevent fogged lenses in very cold or hot, humid temperatures. Glasses which do not possess lenses with any coating may be ill-suited for the aforementioned conditions. Lens color also plays an important role here. Darker tints are more suited to allow lower transmission levels of light from the lens. Inappropriate lenses mean it’s time to get a new pair of ANSI Safety Glasses.

Wear & Tear

Over the course of its shelf life, any eyewear ultimately needs to be replaced at some point. This is quite common as protective eyeglasses are subjected to a rough use & high impacts as they stave off any accidents during work. This may be due to excessive scratches on the lens, internal lens fragmentation or any other damage that makes it unusable in the future. If constant grazing marks on your old lenses impede your vision, it’s time to buy a fresh piece of protective gear for your eyes.

Change in RX lenses

There are times when the vision correction requirements of our eyes change. This may be due to age or anything just natural. Your new prescription would require an update on your eyewear as well. By & Large, changing your RX also would require a new pair of Prescription Safety Glasses.

Anti-Fogging Coating in 3M Prescription Safety Glasses

Fogged lenses are the number one cause of discomfort for industrial workers wearing safety eyewear. According to the study, almost all industrial workers reported fogging as the prominent cause for not wearing their PPE (personal protective equipment on a job). What causes fogging then? Extreme temperatures are often found in industrial workplaces. For people who wear RX glasses during work, such temperatures can be a major cause of fogged lenses. Clouding on the lenses essentially occurs when they are exposed to shifting temperatures at work. A basic example would be working indoors in air-conditioned environments & then moving outdoors in a hot climate (and vice versa). 3M Prescription Safety Glasses offer their own patented Scotch Gard anti-fogging coating on their lenses to solve this problem. As mentioned, fogged lenses can cause workers to remove their eyewear, thus dangerously exposing your eyes to safety hazards at work. Let’s look at fogging in a bit detail & how it can be prevented to enhance safety & productivity.

Fogged Lenses Are Risky

You cannot virtually see when faced with beclouded lenses. This often requires workers to remove the eyewear repeatedly to clean them up. It leads to work efficiency being affected which may have to be compensated for by working overtime. Frequent fogging may lead to disregarding PPE altogether. This results in bare eyes being exposed to a variety of hazards such as toxic chemicals, dust, debris, flying objects, shards, splinters, etc. during industrial jobs. As a result, blunt trauma or laceration to the eye often leads to blindness or serious eye injuries. According to the Vision Council, companies spend $300 million dollars in catering for employee’s eye injuries annually as a result of not wearing PPE. It also prompts a culture of non-compliance on behalf of workers. This conflicts with the OHSA’s workplace standards related to face & eye protection. Thus, resulting in even graver penalties for employers as well. Hence, ANSI Safety Glasses are the most suitable choice which comes with the anti-clouding coating.

How Anti-Fogging Coating Helps

As mentioned, 3M Safety Glasses provide their own anti-clouding solution for lenses. The anti-fogging solution is a compound which is applied to both the inner & outer surface of the lens before it is assembled within the frame of the glasses. It helps in seeing clearly under both hot & cold temperatures. The very compound is subjected to a series of tests to validate its effectiveness. This includes taking the layered lenses from very cold climates to hot ones & vice versa. Breath fog test involves checking the lenses ability to not get clouded if exposed to direct breathing.

Why choose 3M for Anti-Fogging Glasses?

3M’s Scotchgard technology comes with a variety of glasses. Additionally, 3M Protective Eyewear complies with ANSI Z787.1 standards regarding the durability of the lenses against safety hazards. This pertains to the quality of safety assurance being offered by 3M. They are a better choice for people who require vision correction as well. Considering everything, 3M stands as the industry-leading choice for most companies when it comes to selecting appropriate PPE for their employees.