Safety eyewear- a requisite accessory
Himalaya Optical has provisions for safety eyewear for your employees that amalgamate complete protection with great comfort. Inadvertently clubbed with trendy designs, such eyewear is driven by necessity. So, if your industry has the requirements, we have a range of effective products to suit your purpose. Safety eyewear isolates itself from the regular eye glasses. It demands a total conformation to essential criteria that includes an elevated standard of impact resistance in the frames of safety glasses, goggles and in lenses. Not only does it reduce the risk of injuries at sensitive jobs but also adheres to laid safety guidelines in designated workplaces.
What are they?
Safety Eyewear refers to spectacles or goggles that provide protection from various threats omnipresent in certain hazardous work conditions. Regular eyewear must not be confused with safety eyewear. While prescribed eyewear help correct vision, safety eyewear, just as the name implies is primarily about providing safety to the wearer. However such frames or lenses used for safety purposes can be both prescription and non-prescription.
In order to have an eyewear qualify for wearing in hazardous conditions, they need to have a very high standard of impact resistance often making them invincible. Also, their design and shape should be such that they give maximum protection to the worker wearing it while being comfortable too. Safety eyewear also needs to ensure that the workers have correct vision to target complete efficiency in their jobs.
Who needs them?
Eyesight and vision is priceless, yet some workers are in environments where there are serious added threats to their eyes. Statistics have it that there are countless accidents happening in factories and industries in the absence of proper safety eyewear being used by the workforce. This is an important concern for the management of such workplaces. Workers who deal with radiation in their day to day work activities call for the use of safety wear for protection.
The human eye needs shielding from flying projectiles, therefore, employees found in such a setting where there is stone cutting, drilling or grinding and welding need safety eyewear to cover their eyes. In industrial setups too for example where there is work in furnaces or use with laser equipments, the labour there need definite guard for their eyes. It is an absolute necessity.
Where are they used?
An eyewear meant to protect eyes should be used in every such place where there exists a hazard or threat to the eye. In workplaces like industries, factories and research laboratories, there are obvious threats to the eyes of the workers. Some of these threats are referred to as chemical when splashes of harmful chemicals, grease and oil or fumes enter the eye. Sometimes there is risk of projectiles like concrete, wood, metal, dust and other particles entering your eye. Eye needs security from radiation too which includes ultraviolet radiation, infrared radiation, visible light and lasers. More recently, there have been newly found threats called blood borne pathogens which if accidently gets in the eye can prove fatal. Therefore, all of these places necessitate the use of safety eyewear.
Why should they be used?
Safety Eyewear should be used to fulfil the following requirements –
- To provide complete protection to the eyes
- To provide optimal comfort to the wearer
- To provide impact resistance in adverse conditions
- To ensure correct vision at all costs
Need for Accreditation
Safety products including eyewear in India and world over need accreditations for their impact resistance and also to define their minimum levels of performance.
One such document that governs the reliability of protective eyewear used for industrial use in the United States of America is the US-ANSI Z87.1. Compliance with ANSI standard with a Z87.1 qualifies a protective eyewear to be used in a hazardous environment. The lens used in such protectors is prone from breakages depicting strength. An impact of high mass is subjected to the product that performs a lens retention test to deem the product fit for industrial purposes.
Another such governing body that defines impact performance is the Canadian CAN/Z94.3, a benchmark drawn by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). The products that revolve around this standard pay special heed to design of the safety eyewear it lends its accreditation to. In an event of grinding in workplaces where bits can be found flying hazardously, such eyewear shields the face and give optimum protection.
Providing protection from on-spot occupational hazards like splashing materials, flying fragments, aerosols, dust and other harmful gases are safety eyewear products that boast of the CE-EN166F. This is a European standard that has been based on the following criteria- the design and shape of the goggles to provide protection, the strength of the product to withstand challenges, radiation and ultra violet ray protection and its capability to withstand impact of different velocities.
For the provision of safety eyewear that provides maximum protection against occupational hazards in an industrial workplace is this standard referred to as the AS/NZS 1337:2010. The sole purpose of this safety eyewear is to bring to the wearer comfortable and efficient vision while keeping in mind the need for respite against the glare of the sun and other challenges posed in the natural environment.