Preventing
Eye Injuries
March—which is designated as Workplace Eye Safety Awareness Month—is just around the corner, so it’s a great time to plan a talk with your staff about how to protect their eyes on the job.
According to OSHA, employers must “ensure that each affected employee uses appropriate eye or face protection when exposed to eye or face hazards from flying particles, molten metal, liquid chemicals, acids or caustic liquids, chemical gases or vapors, or potentially injurious light radiation.”
As a first step toward reducing eye-injury risks, you can conduct an eye hazard assessment of your recycling operations and eliminate or reduce such hazards wherever possible.
If eye hazards exist in your operation, then the next step is to provide protective eyewear to your employees and require them to wear it. Such eyewear can include goggles, face shields, safety glasses, or full-face respirators. Make sure the eye protection is either custom-fit for the individual worker or adjustable to provide adequate coverage. Ideally, the eyewear will afford a broad peripheral view and should be comfortable to encourage workers to keep it on.
For best results, the eyewear must be the appropriate type to match the work task, job site, type of hazard, other protective equipment used, and personal vision needs of the worker.
■ If working in an area with particles or dust, employees should wear safety glasses with side shields to protect against flying objects.
■ When working with chemicals, workers should wear safety goggles or face shields to protect against splashing.
■ When working around operations that could emit potentially hazardous sparks like welding, employees should use special-purpose safety goggles and helmets designed for the task.
For more information, review OSHA’s Eye and Face Protection standards HERE.
