PPE or Personal protection equipment (to give it its full title) is an essential part of cleaning operations with PPE clothing offering protection to staff, clients and visitors and the environment. If PPE suppliers advise correctly, they can bring significant benefits to your overall cleaning operations.

One might imagine that the development of PPE equipment is limited, as this product area has been around a long time and most products must be quite mature? Well think again, new trends are emerging offering new benefits to users.

Ergonomics

PPE covers a broad range of products, from rubber gloves to firefighter’s safety kit. In cleaning operations, the most common items used at work are safety boots, hi-vis clothing, other protective clothing (e.g. chemical protective clothing and gloves), respiratory protective equipment (RPE), and hearing defenders.

With the increasing need to wear PPE clothing of this type for many tasks there are disadvantages for users including: -

- additional physical strains on the wearer (including heat strain)

- impairment of a wearer’s ability to carry out their work efficiently

- significant levels of discomfort

Any of these can discourage wearers from using PPE correctly, therefore placing them at risk of injury, ill-health or, under extreme circumstances, death.

Good ergonomic design can help to minimise these downsides and therefore help to ensure safe and healthy working conditions through the correct use of PPE.

Talk to your staff about what works for them and is comfortable. Select your PPE clothing not only on price or its ability to protect but also on ergonomic design features. Choose your PPE suppliers on the basis that they can advise you on innovative solutions to your cleaning team needs. This will help to keep your cleaning teams happy

Lightweight materials

Innovations in the area of materials science are constantly reducing the weight of materials which reduce energy requirements for transport and trim production costs. For your cleaning teams this can mean that their PPE clothing can get lighter and lighter and be more comfortable to wear yet offering the same or increased level of protection.

When looking at selecting PPE clothing, look at the specifications sheet and compare weights of clothing. Selecting equipment build with modern innovative materials can increase user satisfaction and reduce storage space requirements.

Improved barrier protection

As with the weight of materials, innovation is leading to the creation of more effective barrier materials in PPE clothing. These developments mean you can broaden the range of protection that your giving your cleaning teams and site users. This is often now not just looking at creating a barrier for the immediate risk of exposure to, for example a caustic substance, but also the longer term effects of exposure such as potential carcinogens.

Select your PPE suppliers carefully finding one who can offer innovative advice and who can demonstrate they are up to speed with the latest product knowledge to help the broad needs of your organisation and the protection and efficiency of your cleaning teams.