Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access originally published online on October 10, 2007
Annals of Occupational Hygiene 2007 51(8):739-740; doi:10.1093/annhyg/mem051
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR |
Safety of Gloves for Chemical protection
Encouraged by the very interesting commentary ‘Gloves as chemical protection—can they really work?’ (Packham, 2006), we would like to present results of the current work on this subject in Germany.During the mid-1990s, health and safety experts in Germany were confronted with problems similar to those explained by Chris Packham. A project was initiated to elaborate rules for good practice for the selection of appropriate gloves. It was financed by the German Federation of Institutions for Statutory Occupational Accident Insurance and Prevention, the German chemical industry association and a company manufacturing protective gloves (Rühl and Stamm, 2000). The final report is Miljö-Chemie (1999), with an English summary at http://www.hvbg.de/e/bia/pro/pro1/pr9106.html (accessed 11 September 2007).
The most important results of the chemical protective gloves project are
- testing procedure was developed that requires only minor changes to EN 374 part 3 (CEN, 2003) but allows to determine wearing times for chemical protective gloves under realistic workplace conditions
- realistic conditions for workplace use of gloves are especially characterized by a temperature of >30°C inside the glove and the facts that mechanical strain will occur when the gloves are used and elongation of the material will result in reduction of breakthrough time
- while elevated temperature and elongation lead to reduction of breakthrough and correspondingly wearing time, an intermittent rather than continuous use of gloves may extend breakthrough time
- realistic conditions for workplace use of gloves are especially characterized by a temperature of >30°C inside the glove and the facts that mechanical strain will occur when the gloves are used and elongation of the material will result in reduction of breakthrough time
- especially for the handling of chemical preparations, a reliable proposal for a glove should specify the type and brand, because not only material and material thickness but also production parameters will influence glove quality (Polanz and Paszkiewicz, 2003).
These results motivated some institutions to perform tests on specific commercially available gloves. The Deutsche Bauchemie, the industrial association for the manufacturers of chemical products in the construction industry, commissioned tests for appropriate gloves for work with bituminous emulsions, solvent-based bituminous preparations and solvent-free epoxy resins. The results of these studies and comparable studies are put together in Table 1.
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Because the product names of gloves are internationally identical, the results of these studies are useful for the whole of Europe.
In 2006, the state of the art of dermal risk assessment and a framework for safety measures and precautions was published in the Technical Rule on Hazardous Substances 401 (TRGS 401) (BAuA, 2006). During the work on this Technical Rule, a lot of insight into technical parameters of gloves and glove testing and other means of dermal protection and skin care products has been generated.
TRGS 401 specifies among other things
- the user does not have to investigate glove effectiveness only if the chemical producer specifies the product name of the gloves;
- the effectiveness of skin care products must be proven by the producer. However, as performance tests are not yet standardized, employers have to decide according to their best judgement;
- if toxicological data or other reliable information is not available for a chemical substance, it should be regarded as a R24 or R38 substance (toxic in contact to skin, irritates the skin) when selecting risk management measures;
- if only the breakthrough times after EN 374 part 3 are known, it is recommended that gloves should be worn at the most for one-third of this time.
The requirements for chemical protective gloves underline the importance of sound information about their performance. In the context of the new European chemicals policy Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals, the marketing of substances will depend on the description of safe exposure scenarios (EU, 2006). If an exposure scenario is only safe because gloves are used, it will be in the responsibility of the person who puts a chemical on the market to investigate and document that efficient gloves are available. The best way to respond to this duty would be to provide the product names of efficient gloves in the safety data sheets.
We will present the work which led to these results in a detailed paper.
Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, Friedrich-Henkel-Weg 1-25, D-44149 Dortmund, Germany
Berufsgenossenschaft der Bauwirtschaft—Prevention, Hungener Strasse 6, D-60389 Frankfurt, Germany
E-mail: reinhold.ruehl{at}bgbau.de
Received May 20, 2007; in final form September 11, 2007
REFERENCES
BAuA. (2006) TRGS 401. Risks resulting from skin contact—determination, evaluation, measures. Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, Dortmund, Germany. Available at: http://www.baua.de/nn_54598/en/Topics-from-A-to-Z/Hazardous-Substances/TRGS/pdf/TRGS-401.pdf. Accessed 11 September 2007.
CEN. (2003) EN 374: protective gloves against chemicals and microorganisms, part 3: determination of resistance to permeation by chemicals. Comité Européen de Normalisation, Brussels, Belgium.
EU. (2006) Regulation (EC) 1907/2006. Registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (REACH). Official Journal of the European Union, 30.12.2006, L396/1—L396/849. Available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2006/l_396/l_39620061230en00010849.pdf. Accessed 11 September 2007.
Miljö-Chemie. (1999) Chemikalienschutzhandschuhe. Report 90239. Miljö-Chemie. Hamburg, Germany. Available at: http://www.hvbg.de/d/bia/pub/rep/rep01/pdf_datei/forsch/handsch.pdf. Accessed 11 September 2007.
Packham C. Gloves as chemical protection—can they really work? Ann Occ Hyg (2006) 50:545–48.
Polanz O, Paszkiewicz P. Neue Wege zur Auswahl von Chemikalien-Schutz-handschuhen (new ways to select protective gloves against hazardous materials). Gefahrstoffe—Reinhaltung der Luft (2003) 63:410–12.
Rühl R, Stamm R. Das Chemikalien-Schutzhandschuhprojekt von HVBG, VCI und KCL. Die BG, Juli 2000 (2000) 392–94.
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