Answer:
What PPE stand for...
PPE stands for personal protective equipment. PPE means any device or appliance designed to be worn or held by an individual for protection against one or more health and safety hazards.
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What regulations apply to PPE?
Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007 , Part 2 Chapter 3 covers Use of Personal Protective Equipment at work.
European Union (Personal Protective Equipment) Regulations 2018 provide that PPE may not be placed on the market or brought into service unless it complies with basic health and safety requirements. It is deemed to be in conformity with the Regulations if it bears the CE mark”.
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What about PPE worn in leisure activities e.g sports helmets, arm bands etc?
PPE used for recreational purposes is under the remit of the the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
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When must PPE be used?
The fundamental principle is that personal protective equipment (PPE) should only be used as a last resort.
The safety and health of employees must be first safeguarded by measures to eliminate workplace risks at source, through technical or organisational means (e.g by substituting hazardous chemical ) or by providing protection on a collective basis (e.g providing scaffolding instead of harnesses).
Collective protective measures covering numbers of employees in a workplace must have priority over protective measures applying to individual employees.
If these measures are not sufficient, only then should PPE be used to protect against the hazards that are unavoidable.
