Open HSI menu
Subscribe Login

Home / Articles and Press Releases / Article / Materials Used in Specialist Workwear

CATEGORIES

  • Latest Issue
  • Above The Neck Protection
  • Chemical Protection
  • Confined Space
  • Construction
  • Emergency Procedures
  • Energy, Oil and Mining Industries
  • Eye Protection
  • Fall Protection
  • Gas Detection
  • Hand Protection
  • Hazardous and Explosive Atmospheres
  • Health and Safety Awareness
  • Hearing Protection
  • Heat and Flame
  • Lighting and ATEX
  • Noise Monitoring
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Respiratory Protection
  • Safety Footwear
  • Safety Technology
  • Safety Training
  • Slips, Trips and Falls
  • Wellbeing at Work
  • Working at Height
  • Working Rights

MORE

  • Press Releases
  • Events
  • Videos
  • Webinars
  • Magazines

COMPANY

  • About
  • Advertising
  • Newsletter
  • Contact
Open HSI menu
Subscribe

Home / Articles and Press Releases / Article / Materials Used in Specialist Workwear

CATEGORIES

  • Latest Issue
  • Above The Neck Protection
  • Chemical Protection
  • Confined Space
  • Construction
  • Emergency Procedures
  • Energy, Oil and Mining Industries
  • Eye Protection
  • Fall Protection
  • Gas Detection
  • Hand Protection
  • Hazardous and Explosive Atmospheres
  • Health and Safety Awareness
  • Hearing Protection
  • Heat and Flame
  • Lighting and ATEX
  • Noise Monitoring
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Respiratory Protection
  • Safety Footwear
  • Safety Technology
  • Safety Training
  • Slips, Trips and Falls
  • Wellbeing at Work
  • Working at Height
  • Working Rights

MORE

  • Press Releases
  • Events
  • Videos
  • Webinars
  • Magazines

COMPANY

  • About
  • Advertising
  • Newsletter
  • Contact

CATEGORIES

  • Article
  • Press Release
  • Above The Neck Protection
  • Chemical Protection
  • Confined Space
  • Construction
  • Emergency Procedures
  • Energy, Oil and Mining Industries
  • Eye Protection
  • Fall Protection
  • Gas Detection
  • Hand Protection
  • Hazardous and Explosive Atmospheres
  • Health and Safety Awareness
  • Hearing Protection
  • Heat and Flame
  • Lighting and ATEX
  • Noise Monitoring
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Respiratory Protection
  • Safety Footwear
  • Safety Technology
  • Safety Training
  • Slips, Trips and Falls
  • Wellbeing at Work
  • White Papers
  • Working at Height
  • Working Rights

Article

Materials Used in Specialist Workwear

By Dr Ningtao Mao

| Read Bio

Published: January 07th, 2012

Share this article

In the first of a series of two articles, we introduce the research of Dr Ningtao Mao, Senior Lecturer in Performance Textiles at the University of Leeds. So informative and extensive was Dr Mao’s submission on the subject of workwear, we believe it will be a vital reference for readers and, as such, urge you also to read September’s edition of H&SI, where you will find further material that will help to inform your selection of this vital kind of PPE.

Serving a purpose

Workwear refers to the garment specifically designed to be worn in the workplace1 in relation to the wearer’s occupational job. The purposes of workwear can be grouped into the following two categories:

1. Conventional workwear: designed for mainly conveying the image of the organisation and boosting the confidence of the customer; or providing some conventional, lightly protection functions such as windproof, stainproof, rainproof or durability to protect people from their work environment, e.g. uniform and corporate clothing. 2. Specialist workwear: specially designed for the purpose of providing protection of job related occupational safety and health to the wearers, their products, customer, patient from environmental hazards and contamination, e.g. protective clothing, gloves, gowns, suits or aprons. The specialist workwear in the group discussed in this paper includes: • Protective workwear to protect wearer at workplace • Workwear designed to protect products, e.g. food, pharmaceutical/medical products, electronic products in cleanroom, to be processed in the workplace from damage, contamination, infection by environmental hazards and people • Workwear to protect both people and products, customers, patient, e.g. pharmaceutical, medical products and patients in hospitals

The market

Despite the impact of the recession, the growth of the workwear market is still strong. In the EU market, workwear expenditure in 2007 was about 4.4 billion Euros and, expected to be 5.8 billion2 by 2015, the workwear value accounted for around 43 percent of total PPE value in the EU market in 2007. Workwear value in the EU market can further be divided into 55 percent traditional workwear and 45 percent protective (CE-marked) clothing3. This might be due to the rigorous Health and Safety legislation and the expensive potential costs associated with injuries of employees, and the benefits of the workwear to their productivity/performance within EU. The other driving force might include the expanding overseas market such as India, China and Vietnam, where a large number of insufficiently protected workers in agricultural, energy (e.g. mining, electric, oil, petrochemical) and infrastructure (e.g. construction, steel, cement) industries offer additional market demand. This could be seen from the estimated distribution of PPE revenue in different industries in 2014-15 worldwide, as shown in Table 1. Interestingly, protective clothing – including protective workwear – accounted for about 22 percent of the total PPE marketvalue in 20084.

Regulations

Protective workwear (not including the wear for the protection of head, eye and face, neck, hand, foot and knee, respiration and hearing protection) is a group of PPE intended to protect people from accidents or injuries when working under conditions involving cold, heat, flame, rain, reduced visibility, chemicals or moving parts. Its design and manufacture is regulated by the basic safety requirements set out in EC Directive 89/686/EEC (or CE marking regulation) and associated around 300 EN standards for EC Marking5, and the uses and selections of the clothing are regulated by various national/international directives, regulations and health and safety policy (e.g. in the EU/UK, Personal Protective Equipment (EC Directive) at Work Regulations 1992, Personal Protective Equipment Regulations 2002, The Noise at Work Regulations 1989, The Construction (Head Protection) Regulations 1989, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH), also 29 CFR Part 1910 (USA). Specialist workwear also includes garments designed to protect products from contaminations during the manufacture process. For example, any materials intended to come into contact with food in their finished state must be regulated according to European Regulation (EC) 1935/2004 and (EC) 2023/2006, and guided by EC Good Manufacture Practice (GMP) in food manufacture; Food Hygiene Directive (93/43/EEC), EU Regulation 852/2004 (Article 5) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP), in the USA, such legislation includes Code of Federal Legislation (CFR): 21 CFR 174 ~ 21 CFR 190 (USA). Some typical examples of the performance of specialist workwear set in the CE Marking scheme and defined by various associated BS EN ISO standards are summarised in Table 2. The requirements of the fabrics used in specialist workwear are usually set to maintain three functions of the clothing: protection, comfort and mobility. In addition, there are requirements for the fabrics designated for a garment to have certain degree of durability to stand harsh clean, wash, ageing and hazardous attack conditions. In some special cases workwear must not only protect the wearer from environmental hazards, but also protect the product from the contamination or cross-infection by the wearer – and the workwear itself. While the performance of the workwear depends on both the structural design of the clothing and the properties of the component fabrics, the latter is essential. In the engineering design of specific fabrics to meet those special performance requirements of clothing set in CE Marking scheme, together with other additional functions, the composition of fibres, membrane, coating and accessory materials (such as seals, tapes and zips) used in the garment, together with the microstructure of fabrics, yarns and fibres, employed to construct the clothing needs to correspond to the hazardous environment, the human physiological comfort, durability and other special requirements (e.g. product hygiene, environmental impact and toxicity). As shown in Table 2, all the standards for CE Marking clothing are based on the other EN and ISO standards for the examination of the fabric properties, which are decisive for the clothing functions mentioned above.

Conclusion

Regular readers of H&SI will know that it’s unusual for us to serialise articles, so it’s perhaps worth emphasising why we are in this instance. Firstly, while the depth of Dr Mao’s research is unquestionable, the sheer breadth of it quite literally prompted logistical considerations and, when faced with the decision to carve back the information he was willing to share with readers, it was unanimously agreed that it was too important to lose. As a result, we would urge readers to ensure that they read September’s edition, in which Dr Mao reviews the properties of materials used – including traditional fibres and high performance fibres – in existing specialist workwear, and compares those properties against the requirements for the fabric materials set in the CE marking standards. It promises to be another powerful submission.

Published: 01st Jul 2012 in Health and Safety International

Share this article

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr Ningtao Mao

Connect with Dr Ningtao Mao

POPULAR POSTS BY Dr Ningtao Mao

- hsi -

Article

Materials Used in Specialist Workwear

Article

Woollen Technical Textiles

Get email updates

Sign up for the HSI newsletter

Keep up-to-date through the power of email with Europe's largest audited safety magazine - delivering the latest news and products to satisfy all your occupational safety needs.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

FEATURED ARTICLES

Article

 Thameslink Traffic Management Programme

Press Release

‘Working At Height’ Remains Biggest Danger

Press Release

“Uncertainty and Ignorance” Risks More Asbestos Deaths

Advertisement

SOCIAL MEDIA

HSI on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/HSIMagazine/

Advertisement

SOCIAL MEDIA

HSI on Twitter

hsimagazine HSI Magazine @hsimagazine ·
25 Jan

Global gas sensing leader @ionscience has today formally announced the addition of a high-specification Particulate Matter (PM) sensor to its portfolio.

Read all about this exciting addition!
https://www.hsimagazine.com/press-release/worlds-best-performing-particulate-matter-pm-sensor-now-available-from-ion-science-ltd/

#hsimagazine #ionscience #particulatematter

Reply on Twitter 1618280038557970432 Retweet on Twitter 1618280038557970432 Like on Twitter 1618280038557970432 Twitter 1618280038557970432

Advertisement

SUBSCRIBE

Stay up to date with our newsletter

    • Keep up-to-date with Europe’s largest audited safety magazine

 

    • Delivering the latest news and products to satisfy all your occupational safety needs

 

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Subscribe

SUBSCRIBE TO HSI MAGAZINE

5 reasons to subscribe to our digital and print package

  • Stay up to date from anywhere in the world, with instant access to the latest issue straight from your phone, tablet or laptop.
  • Trust that you’re getting the best content from our range of internationally accredited authors.
  • Get full access to our archives and see how occupational safety has evolved with us over the years.
  • Enjoy our monthly newsletter curated with up-to-the-minute news and a selection of editor’s top picks.
  • Hot off the press and straight to your door – look forward to your own glossy copy of HSI, delivered five times a year
Subscribe View Subscription levels

STAY SAFE & INFORMED

Subscribe to the best health & safety articles, news, products and regulations

Find out more

Stay up to date with our newsletter

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

ABOUT

  • About HSI International
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us

YOUR ACCOUNT

Sign In Register Account Subscribe to HSI

RESOURCES

Request Media Pack

CONNECT

ACCREDITATIONS

Copyright Bay Publishing 2023. All Rights reserved.

Designed & Built by:
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT