Personal Protective Equipment

PPE is the final defense used to give us protection from hazards at work. The best means of protection is the elimination of the hazard through the use of engineering controls. Examples of this include machine enclosures that collect and remove dust before it becomes part of our breathing air and guards that prohibit us from coming in contact with moving machine parts.

Another means of protection is the use of administrative controls. This includes things like job rotation to help minimize exposure by any individual and training to teach us how to minimize a hazard. Ergonomic training is a type of administrative control. By learning how to use our computer workstations properly we can decrease the risk of developing certain repetitive strain injuries.