Personal Protective EquipmentPPE

Personal Protective Equipment is the gear a worker wears to reduce exposure to a hazard — the hard hat, the safety glasses, the respirator, the arc-rated suit, the hearing protection. OSHA 29 CFR 1910.132 requires a hazard assessment that certifies the PPE selected for the task, and 1910.133 through 1910.138 govern the specific standards for eye, head, foot, hand, respiratory, and hearing protection. PPE is the cheapest control to specify and the most expensive to rely on, because it protects the wearer only when the wearer wears it correctly, every time, without exception.

PPE is the last rung of the hierarchy of controls — elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and PPE — and the reason it is last is that it does not remove the hazard, it only sits between the worker and the hazard that is still there. A program that jumps to PPE before it has asked whether the hazard can be eliminated or engineered out has chosen the control that depends on human compliance over the control that does not. The discipline that makes PPE work is fit, training, and enforcement: a respirator that does not fit leaks, a harness that is not anchored holds nothing, and a hard hat left in the cab protects no one. See the hierarchy of controls and safety data sheet.