How people show up to work is an important foundation for safety. The work in a distillery involves working with chemicals, handling hot fluids, and moving materials around the distillery for different aspects of production. That kind of work demands the right kind of protection.
Any setting where distilling is happening will have thermal, physical, and chemical hazards. Every distillery owner should walk through their facility to itemize the specific hazards present in their own unique mix of processes, technology, staff expertise, and experience. A qualified industrial hygienist or safety professional can assist in assessing hazards and helping to select personal protective equipment (PPE) that is appropriate to your specific workplace.
The next step is specifying the standard level of equipment employees are expected to wear. In many manufacturing settings, this equates to eye protection, hearing protection, safety shoes or boots, long pants, and shirts—the last two made of a natural material, such as cotton. Employees working with ground grain likely will need a fit-tested respirator for the dustier portions of the process. Many general manufacturing facilities also require head protection or “bump caps.”
While OSHA generally requires the employer to provide PPE, it is important to note that the agency does not require companies to reimburse employees for personal items such as shoes, pants, or shirts that could also be worn off site.
Still, reimbursing your team for these items can go a long way toward gaining acceptance and compliance from the team—and getting that kind of buy-in is important to creating a culture of safety.
Eye Protection
Eye protection reduces the likelihood of injury from splashes, flying objects, and items that could poke. Safety glasses, safety goggles, or face shields should meet the standards of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). These products typically indicate “meets Z87 standards.” On safety glasses, the top frame should have a shield fit close to the brow. The glasses should have side shields at least 1¾ inches (4.5 cm) in height. The arms or temples should be adjustable. The bottom of the frames should match closely to the unique curvature of the cheeks, minimizing gaps at the bottom of the glasses.
For prescription-eyewear users, there are prescription safety-glasses manufacturers that make a custom prescription lens for frames that meet the Z87 standard. Another option is goggles that can fit around the prescription eyewear with minimal gaps. Face shields are another option available to all workers, and these should be used with safety glasses or goggles. All these solutions should be maintained in good working order, and they should be washed and dried after each use. Scratches, cracks, or discoloration indicate that replacements are needed.
Hearing Protection
In the United States, OSHA’s permissible exposure limit for noise in the workplace is an average of 90 decibels in the A-weighting (dBA) per eight-hour day. This level is significantly higher than other health and safety regulations in North America. Provinces in Canada specify a maximum of 85 dBA average for an eight-hour day, with hearing protection being provided at 83 dBA. Canadian provincial regulations allow workers to be exposed to 90 dBA for a maximum of only four hours a day; beyond that is considered a significant health and safety violation. For context, a reading of 90 decibels is equivalent to a shouting conversation or an electric drill.
Here’s a rule of thumb: If you must shout to be understood at arm’s length, the environmental noise is likely higher than 90 dBA.
Hearing protection such as earplugs or earmuffs help prevent damage by blocking sound waves from the inner ear. Note that disposable plugs are designed to be worn only once. Reusable plugs can be used multiple times, but they require care and cleaning to remain sanitary. Custom-formed reusable plugs, made of silicone, are a custom casting of your ear canal. Canal caps cover the opening to the ear canal, and these are best for frequent on/off use in a moderate-sound environment.
Each type of hearing protection lists a noise reduction rating (NRR). The guidance on using the NRR rating is complex to implement, and it has been shown to overestimate the actual protection provided by hearing-protection devices. Current recommendations suggest using 50 percent of the NRR rating to approximate protection provided.
Earplugs can work well if they are put into the ear canal correctly. Any folds or bends in the foam decrease the effectiveness of the earplug. Briefly:
- Roll the foam to compress it long and thin.
- Using your opposite hand reach over your head to the opposite ear, pull the ear up and back to straighten the ear canal. Use the free hand on the same side as the target ear to put the compressed ear plug into the ear canal.
- Release your ear and hold the plug for five to 10 seconds while it expands.
Also be aware that many earplugs come in different sizes. The most common size is on the small to medium end of the scale. Get a variety of sizes for your workforce and any visitors.
Earmuffs provide more consistent protection by eliminating the variable installation process. Earmuffs and plugs can be used together for even more protection.
As with any health and safety item, an assessment of the situation is the first step. An industrial hygienist can measure sound, interpret the measurements for a specific workplace, recommend appropriate hearing protection devices, and provide training to workers.
Safety Shoes and Boots
Footwear also should meet ANSI standards. This includes features such as anti-slip textures, protection against corrosive chemicals, hot substances, rolling or falling objects, penetration, static, fluids, and physical injury, such as crushing or ankle-twisting.
Many brands indicate compliance with ANSI Z41. That standard was superseded by F2412 and F2413 in 2005, but “Z41” remains common shorthand for compliant footwear, and searching for that online will help your employees find options.
Consider the elements of footwear that would be beneficial to the employees at your distillery. Working with skids for manual material handling requires boots with compression protection. Similarly, working with kegs, barrels, or metal racks requires impact protection, so shoes or boots with steel or composite toes would be the right choice. One or more sprained ankles on-site could provide the motivation to specify 4- or 6-inch (10 cm or 15 cm) high boots for ankle protection.
Decide the minimum standards that are right for conditions at your distillery, record the standards, and let the employees know.
Pants
Pants should be long-legged, loose-fitting, and cover the tops of work boots. Bib overalls, or coveralls, are also acceptable.
The long legs of the pants cover and protect the skin of the wearer from dermal exposure to chemicals and hot fluids. If an employee is working with electrical components, the fabric should be of natural fibers—not synthetics, which can melt to the skin.
The loose fit ensures anything that splashes or spills can stay away from the skin surface. The pants covering the tops of work boots or shoes is important to keep material out of the shoes—for instance, a spill of hot mash into the boots could result in burns that are even more severe that they would be otherwise because the hot material is held against the skin for longer.
Pants should have durable construction with reinforced stress points, be easily washable, and be kept in good condition with no rips or tears.
Shirts
Shirts should cover the torso and arms to protect against spills and thermal encounters. Sleeve length is variable, and the decision should be based on the specific task. It’s easy to roll up long sleeves, but it’s impossible to lengthen short sleeves.
Snaps are preferable to buttons. Snaps are integrated into the fabric and can be undone quickly if a spill necessitates quick removal. Buttons, on the other hand, have the potential to fall off, and they take some effort to close and open. Shop coats or lab coats with snap closures may be an appropriate item to have available to workers for various tasks that require some arm protection.
Respirators
Respirators are required if workers are exposed to dusts beyond the permissible exposure limits, or PELs, mandated by OSHA.
Although PELs have not been updated since they were initially adopted in 1970, OSHA specifies PELs for 16 different substances plus standards for 13 carcinogens without PELs. The agency recognizes that these may no longer be adequate because “industrial experience, new developments in technology, and scientific data clearly indicate that in many instances these adopted limits are not sufficiently protective of workers’ health.” OSHA also recommends using limits developed by other organizations, such as:
- the Biological Exposure Indices (BEIs) and Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) of the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH),
- the PELs of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health,
- and the Recommended Exposure Limits (RELs) of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
For example: ACGIH’s current value for grain dust is four milligrams per cubic meter (4 mg/m3) over an eight-hour workday. Again, an industrial hygienist can monitor worker exposure to establish levels in your distillery for comparison to published levels.
The use of most respirators in the workplace requires the worker to complete a qualitative or quantitative fit test to ensure the piece of equipment will work with their facial structure. It is not acceptable to purchase respirators off the shelf and press employees into using them without verifying the employee is being adequately protected.
N95 and half-face elastomeric masks are air-purifying respirators (APRs). N95 and half-face masks provide a protection factor of 10 and require a fit test. The powered-air purifying respirator (PAPR) provides a protection factor of 25 and does not require a fit test, but it does require a significant amount of ancillary equipment and care. Full-face elastomeric masks provide a protection factor of 50 and require a fit test.
It is important to note that tight-fitting face masks such as the N95, the half-face mask, and the full-face mask require a seal with the user’s skin. Facial hair makes it difficult to achieve the needed seal. There are options available to accommodate facial hair, such as the PAPR-style mask, but this requires more care and is significantly more expensive for the employer.
However, PPE in general requires investment—and its expense is small compared to the costs of accidents involving workers and the lack of a compliant safety culture.