I have had to use banded ear caps. I am surprised yuor employees have not got on with them as they tend to be comfortable and easy to put on and off.

Hi you can get ear pugs from E.A.R they are quite expensive but are supposed to attenuate at lower noise levels they are E.A.R Ultrafit 14 or E.A.RFLEX 14. hope this helps

What issues is the employee reporting? If all employees in this area were to ask for them how many are we talking about? Regards

We had a similar issue and the only ones we found at the time were the 3M Ultrafit 14 ones, we bought some to trial and then got one of our sister companies (a PPE supplier) to stock them for us. Obviously if you find something different than the above, let us know on here as we like to offer a choice to our employees and with these being a lower SNR it hasn't been possible.

Are they with an SNR of 14?

Only in ideal conditions. Conditions vary and so the SNR's vary but of course the manufacturers only quote the ideal. Regards

I'm going to be a bit daft with this question....but does it really matter that the SNR=22 is an over-protection? This is better than no protection and also mitigate the likely scenario that they're not worn properly. Unless of course, over-protection is going to cause another hazard eg FLT operator not being able to hear properly? Have I just answered my own question!!!

And before i forget, agree with the sentiment from Walker, too many things to rely on, from the manufacturer all the way through to people actually using them etc

I wish to offer my take on the situation - having worked in noisy environments in the past too. Perhaps, first of all, you could try extra-ordinary measures to stop the noise at source. Nobody has asked and you haven't told us, what this noise is being generated from - 'we' might have better answers to give you. I don't believe in pussy footing with management, tell them straight, the new sentencing guidelines have now come into effect, so breaches of safety law will attract much greater fines, especially to companies that do the bare minimum to protect their workers. UK law is fantastic, it puts the emphasis on being better than we can be (the spirit of the law). So having a certain PPE (ear plugs) is overkill - big deal, it's still the wrong way of looking at the problem. PPE is the absolute last thing you should be considering. If you think I'm being daft, I don't care, I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take anymore.