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#1 Posted : 30 July 2003 11:54:00(UTC)
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Posted By Roger Eaton It seems to me that employees working in our warehouse racking areas should be wearing hard hats but so far, this has not been deemed necessary. We have a mixture of palletised & other means of storage - up to 5 levels high & employees operate in the area both manually & by means of trucks. Any thoughts please?
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#2 Posted : 30 July 2003 13:33:00(UTC)
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Posted By Robert Whent Roger, the requirement for wearing hardhats must be to protect the employee from falling objects or if you are concerned about the employees hitting their heads on the stillages / racking then a 'bumpcap' may be appropriate. What objects could fall on them? Would a hard hat help? 2 quick stories..On construction sites hard hats are compulsory. I had a guy on site in the past have a 3kg lump of steel dropped on his head from about 3.5m. His hard hat deflected the steel and he just got a head ache!! On an exercise with the forces they parachuted a landrover and men into a drop zone. The drop didn't go as planned and they all hit the earth rather too fast. They were all wearing kevlar helmets, but it didn't protect the guy who was hit by the falling landrover!! Moral: Reduce the risk before relying on PPE, but if PPE is shown to be required by the risk assessment, then make sure that it is adequate for the purpose and worn at all times. Maybe of some assistance... Rob
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#3 Posted : 30 July 2003 14:29:00(UTC)
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Posted By Charles New Just to add to the debate. If there was a legal duty to provide/wear hard hats in such environments, how is it that a certain Scandinavian furniture warehouse retailer can get away with having members of the public wandering around the warehouse racking without having to wear hard hats or have any supervision??
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