Managing Dermal Risk: Moving On From Gloves

A basic rule of all exposure control should be that this is, so far as possible, independent of the worker. This is what technical control measures attempt to achieve; even more because there is a problem with gloves. Since gloves are dependent upon the wearer to don, use and remove correctly, we immediately introduce an element of uncertainty. Furthermore, when controlling exposure by technical methods, it is frequently possible to structure these so that the control is 'fail-to-safe', i.e. should the control measure fail, this will not result in worker exposure. In practice, this is unachievable with personal protective equipment such as gloves. Any failure will result in worker exposure.

And of course there stil,l is the problem that gloves that are adequate for some chemicals are useless for others, that co-exposure to solvents can cause substances to permeate very differently, and that dirty gloves can make exposure worse than none at all. Misapplication of latex gloves can notoriously lead to sensitization.

Still: Reliance on gloves will be hard to change.

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AplusA-online.de - Source: The Annals of Occupational Hygiene