I would guess that there has always been legislation.... risk assessment to ensure PPE provides sufficient protection to the individual and to the task. Is this the PC enforcing a site rule?

Glove selection is a minefield and can't be addressed with a blanket approach. I'm assuming they're referencing cut resistance but that alone is a poor measure for a building site that can contain abrasion hazards, chemicals, puncture hazards etc. I had a similar tale recently where a friend of mine was kicked off site for not having two stripes on his vest. I sent him back to ask what class off vest they were specifying, was it class 1,2 or 3. The reply was two stripe standard. Needless to say he has now got his lost wages back.

This is coming from the MCG and it is not a rumour, it has been enforced for a few years now. Hand and eye protection.They are using the CDM regs, written site rules. NO compliance then NO work. RA does not come into the frame of mind. And do not try to use the visor on the hard hat as eye protection, they will not allow that either. This is the bane of the construction industry along with CSCS and CPCS cards. Cahoots with suppliers?

All gloves used as protection must comply with the relevant standards. The general standard is EN420. Gloves fall into one of three categories. Cat. 1 is for minimum risks. Cat. 2 is for protection against more serious risks and is usually relevant only for physical protection. Cat 3 is for high risks, i.e. protection against irreversible injuries and mortal danger. Cat. 3 is particularly relevant for chemical protection. In addition there are separate standards for different types of hazard, e.g. EN388 - Protective gloves for mechanical risks. This is, perhaps, where the numbers game comes in. For example there are 5 categories of protection against cuts and four against each of abrasion, tear and puncture resistance. EN374 is the standard specifically for chemical and bacteriological risks. Essentially gloves in Cat 1 may be used for minor hazards, e.g. water, detergents and mild acids. For anything else the gloves should be Cat 3. Cat 3 is the only category requiring testing for chemical permeation breakthrough. You can easily tell which category the glove belongs to. There are two symbols that should be shown on both packaging and gloves. One is an open beaker with a question mark. This is a Cat 1. glove. A symbol showing a laboratory flask indicates Cat 3. and should have three letters underneath, indicating which chemicals were used to test for the glove's performance to meet the standard. Of course, you will then need to consult the manufacturer's literature to establish whether the glove is suitable for your chemical(s). However, even this needs treating with caution as the performance you will achieve in practice rarely accords with the data published as a result of permeation breakthrough testing to EN374-3. Performance against a mixture is usually not shown in the manufacturers' literature and the data for the individual chemicals can be irrelevant. Performance under actual conditions of use canvary enormously, depending upon a whole range of factors, such as ambient temperature, degradation, flexing, stretching, etc. Chris

There is a useful hand-protection guide from one of the distributers that includes the various risks :- http://www.greenham.com/selectionguides/glove.pdf

Chris Thanks - I didn't think about the nitrile etc. Good point. I was thinking more along the lines of the cheapo gardening type gloves which often get used in place of riggers gloves.

Thank you to all for replying to my query.