Posted By Mark Evans
Depends how much trouble you are going to with the solvent gloves and if they presenting other hazards. There is a very slight chance of skin irritation in people who are sensitive but at this dilution it is relatively harmless. Baby wipes often contain it at 1-2% for the disinfectant properties you know! In hygiene terms (if this is important in your sector) it is better the gloves continue to be worn.

Posted By Mark Eden
What about a good old Risk Assessment?
Elimitate if possible, PPE last resort.

Posted By Adrian Watson
And so does wearing gloves... in fact this is a greater risk than the isopropyl alcohol.

Regards Adrian

Posted By Mark Evans
Derek

As you can see everyone who has contributed to the forum is right in one degree or another. A dilute IPA solution is relatively safe and the risk is one of dermatitis. You need to evaluate if the risk posed by the gloves or the chemical is greater. As an example in my lab based days we would wipe our benches down with dilute IPA and no gloves were needed they were offered but more individuals had issues with the powdered latex, however in the Microbiology lab next door this was mandatory for reasons other than the chemical. A suitable and sufficent risk assessment based on the circumstances I'm afraid! If you send more details of the circumstances I and my colleagues might be able to give you more detailed advice.

Posted By MichaelM
Are the employees who will be using the isopropanol soultion required to wear these gloves in their normal day to day routine?

This goes back to the question of what is normally worked with on the bench?

e.g. Are they lab workers who clean the benches at the end of the day, and wear gloves for most other areas of their work?

Posted By MichaelM
Adrian

I don't think you are being awkward you are putting your point and quite well.

However:

I worked in a lab for 10.5 years and during that time had to wear gloves for the majority of the time. Most of that time was with what is now known to be just about the worst glove i.e. powdered latex. When I moved into Health and Safety / Biological Safety / Radiation Safety I put in place a programme where there was a choice of gloves and powdered latex were frowned upon and very rarely used. In fact they tended only to be used when we double gloved for radiation work. The glove next to the skin would be unpowdered (I also asked employees to let me know if they had any latex allergies known or suspected and also if they were having skin irritation problems).

When we sweated, we removed the gloves washed our hands and put on another pair.

The biologicals / radioisotopes etc that we were working with meant that we could not safely clean benches unless we had a pair of gloves on. This also meant that when emptying lab waste bins and taking autoclave bags to the autoclave we had to have gloves on.

I hope you can see that I have a certain perspective that I am trying to bring to this discussion.

Cheers Michael

Posted By MichaelM
We used 70% IPA on our gloves to make sure there were no contaminants on them, when working with biologicals, continually over the years,. It is a recognised method.