Also, the US Chemical Safety Board has all its regulations written in the blood of those who died because of ignorance, carelessness, cutting corners, and corporate negligence.
@@user-ii8dz4vu7n I've actually recently started watching AttourneyTom's videos of him checking those videos and giving his own opinions from his perspective as a catastrophic injury lawyer who represents people that are injured in those types of accidents (among many other types of severe accidents).
Fun fact: One person walking purposefully through a shopping mall in a Tyvek oversuit, full-face respirator, and nitrile gloves looks silly. Six of you walking purposefully through the same mall in Tyvek oversuits, full-face respirators and nitrile gloves... you quickly have the whole mall to yourself.
@@adissentingopinion848 Bring a small cart covered in equipment. The weirder the kit, the better. No one will mistake you for a tourist if you’re wheeling an anti-mass spectrometer with you.
Actually did this, but it wasn't a mall. People didn't clear out and instead kept interrupting our work, even though there were biohazard signs. People are dumb.
There was a semester when I was repeatedly used as an example for other people to follow. "He's a history major. He doesn't even have to take this class. If he's doing these things, the rest of you don't have an excuse." One of those things was wearing appropriate PPE and tying back my hair in the lab. Another was actually showing up.
Bruh, I find the chemistry labs in college better than my actual chemistry classes because I have physical things for me to grasp the concepts with, there has yet to be a lab I missed to fault on my end, and I have spent money getting more lab goggles because the teachers there are very strict about PPE and I would sometimes forget my goggles
Steel toe boots are usually crammed with other useful features too. They'll typically be made with extreme puncture resistance in the sole, electric shock resistance for when the ground is electrified, grooves for safely climbing ladders, soles that give you the ability to walk on wet or oily smooth hard floors, better ice grip, and often are waterproof too.
Electricians often get the equivalent of a steel toed boot. It uses something like fiberglass instead of steel. That way even if the boot takes some damage, it won't be an electric hazard.
@@skylinefever i have a pair of composite toes boots for site visits as an electrical engineer. I definitely prefer my toes to not be zapped off by any number of electrical effects. (Magnetic fields can induce current in anything conductive bypassing its insulation) But i think the main reason is to just thinken the insulation to raise its voltage rating. But for my job i visit all sorts of places including clean rooms that need the full setup just so i don't litter it with my skin cells, and the opposite which is a cramped steam tunnel that needs a confined space permit.
Working in manufacturing, I can attest to the oily floor and puncture resistance. I've found large metal chips sticking close to three quarters of an inch into the bottom of my shoe. Wasn't an issue at all.
The thing that really elevates a lab coat to S-tier isn't just nomex. It's having snaps instead of buttons. When your lab coat needs to come off *right now* you don't want to be fiddling around with buttons. If your coat doesn't have snaps, adding them is super easy, takes 10 minutes to install if you've never done it before.
Aw snap! There are several TikToks out there that can show you how to install them but some snaps can be installed like a button and if you know how to sew a button, you can install these fasteners. Velcro could be another alternative to use but the added surface area will take more time to stitch each side and an "X" through the diagonals for added reinforcement. Easy don & easy doff. Just make sure whatever you're working with has safety ratings to use in the lab.
This! or buttons "sewn with a hot needle". Well not a real hot needle, but with just enough stitches that they hold for every day use, but can not withstand the forces of rapid undress, be it after a lab spill or during a stripper performance. Buttons need to fly.
When I got my first labcoat, from uni, it was a polyester one with buttons. Pretty sure the student union guy handling the orders was sleeping during safety lectures
In the Fall of 2021, I had to write an ethnography on any culture of my choosing, and I decided to ask my brother if I could show up at his workplace, make observations, and ask his peers questions. I thought it would be an interesting topic to write about since he's a mechanic. His supervisor was okay with me coming in and taking notes on their workspace. When I got there, all of his peers thought I was either with OSHA or the union, and they got very hostile, but my brother defused the situation by telling them that I was his brother just doing this for my term paper. They cooled down, and I got to work, though they were all ready to throw their tools at me before they knew about it. I came in for several weeks to see how they worked with each other. When I tell you that it was very unsafe in there, it was VERY unsafe. There would be car parts scattered all over the service bay, fluid spills, and some of the guys there were washing their hands with the degreasers that they'd use to clean the parts (if I remember correctly, this one guy was using solvent 150 to clean his hands with, and it smells like a mix of scraped metal and gasoline). Some of them never used goggles or gloves, even when using angle grinders. The latex gloves they had to work with would fall apart when using the degreaser too, and for whatever reason, they weren't being given different gloves for it. A lot of the other things they used in the shop (cleaners, fluid, etc.) had some nasty chemicals in them (hexane, among others), and they just weren't following basic safety while using them. There was also one week, where apparently, someone left the engine running in one of the cars while there was a leak, and the whole engine caught fire. I missed seeing it by about an hour. After doing all the research about the industry, I found that a lot of mechanics actually suffer from eye damage, among a lot of other health problems, as a result of constantly being exposed to the chemicals they work with, and the prevalence of these problems increased with their experience in the field. The entire project was an eye-opening experience as to how unfairly mechanics get treated, including poor pay and poor safety; yet for some reason, they still stayed there because they loved the banter, the fake arguments, and the culture they created for themselves in a small service bay.
I worked for a mechanic for some time and this sounds about right, we never wore gloves and would only wear basic eye protection (usually sunglasses) when using the grinding wheel. We would also regularly clean our hands with brake cleaner, good times, it only becomes dangerous when you stop paying attention.
Anthropology student here, I had a similar project and just wanted to comment that your topic of choice is super interesting! I’d love to see an ethnographic report on a topic like that.
At university the chemistry professor had a pair of safety glasses framed on the wall of the lab. They were covered in chemical residue from where a reaction had got a bit vigorous and sprayed the wearer with hot chemicals.
I know something similar where a 1.5 m tall dewar exploded in physical chemistry and someone had a 10 cm long glass shard stuck in their lab glasses. They took a photo of that and put a massive print in the lab as a reminder to wear your PPE
On the topic of dust, i once had to work with ibuprofen tablets in a university lab. I brought up that I was allergic to it and would bring an n95 mask. When I brought up my allergy they decided to bring the safety guy for all labs and he just said "you get a bye this week kid, better safe than sorry." My lab mates were not happy at that but considering someone spilled their crushed tablet during my lab I was glad they considered my safety paramount.
@@HectorHiFor me I thought it was a reaction to a medication, but I have so many allergies I never considered NSAIDs could be another allergy... dang. Thank you for bringing this up!
@@HmmmmmLemmeThinkNoI first found out I was allergic when I was given 800mg ibuprofen after being in a car accident. That caused me to go into anaphylaxis. Years later I wanted to know if it was all NSAIDs or just ibuprofen. I went to an immunologist and they recommend testing. The testing for it was pretty much exposure to asprin in a controlled setting. Started with swishing 5mg suspended in water. Then ramped up to 20mg while still swishing. What made me react was swallowing 10mg. I ended up developing a rash over 10 minutes that went away with Benadryl. After that I was recommended to not take any NSAIDs.
@@That_Chemist I saw paracetamol? & ibuprofen mentioned on a printed receipt (food delivery) and laughed with a colleague. As I figured the app was requesting food allergies. The grumpy staff on the counter didn't smile when I asked if it was a secret ingredient. On a 999 TV show a paramedic asked someone if they're allergic and they replied "cats" 😁 I've read Ibuprofen should be avoided by asthmatics, and I think my sister had some issues but I've been ok.
Steel toe cap boots (or kevlar plate toe cap boots...) should be SSS tier. Everything a normal boot does, plus not losing your toes when you drop things, usually having puncture resistant soles, and often being treated to be chemical spill resistant are all good. Even more so when they're stitched and the soles don't dissolve or shatter in common to moderately rare solvents. *And* they're usually ankle boots, providing support in the event your lab floor gets a bit slippery, or you tread on a spill, and providing a small amount of extra protection if you spill something and it splashes at ground height. Dust masks also have a hidden advantage - they stop you accidentally blowing on the powder you're measuring, and scattering it. :P
N95s (AKA dust masks) are often used in the medical field as they filter out 95% of airborne microparticles. When properly fitted, they provide an excellent seal and can be easily combined with other PPE such as face shields & glasses/goggles in high risk scenarios. N95s are much cheaper and less bulky than full respirators. (meaning the facilities have no excuse not to provide those) Good shoes are always important and it's tough to find shoes that aren't porous, but it's important. Mark's has plenty of options for different settings. It's also important that they're comfortable and that you're mindful of normal wear and tear that could damage the integrity of the footwear. Anti-slip footwear is key as there's always a fall risk in the presence of spills. Falling down is bad enough as you could hit your head but you could also have a chemical bath. Puncture resistance is one feature that often gets overlooked but you never know when you'll step on something sharp. Also, while the steel toes offer protection, they don't make you invincible, if enough force is added, that plate acts as a lever and could sever your toes clean off, but if you get to the hospital fast enough, they might be able to reattach it but that's infinity better than having your toes completely crushed under the weight and ultimately losing them for good.
Hardhats in plants are also very important for mitigating bumps into overhead piping and equipment. If you stand up into a pipe at full speed from a crouch, a hardhat can be the difference between a few days of neck pain and knocking yourself out cold.
In the Star Trek movie "The Undiscovered Country", Chief ENgineer Scot is bragging about how well he knows the Enterprise, he stands up quickly and kocks himself out on the doorframe.
I once had a very talented intern at work, about 15 years old, knew more about chemistry then some Bachelors, but was very distractable, distracting and required constant supervision due to his age. Had to write a report on a friday and couldn't supervise him for that moment. Was looking around my lab for a way to keep him occupied so I could think clearly for once in two weeks, then realized what a fucking death trap a lab can be. So I decided to let him cut some glass DC plates with a wolfram carbide knife. A while into it, I hear a loud "clunk" and a "OH SHIT", almost got a heart attack. "Oh my god, did you just let that kid work with one of the hardest edges in the world unsupervised and without a steel meshed glove? Why don't I have a steel meshed glove? Does he still have all his fingers?" Luckily, he only cut into the tiling of the table, but god damn, having kids around your lab makes you suddenly realize how dangerous the things you do can be. I don't mind hurting myself by being neglectful and stupid so much, but I never want to be responsible for hurting somebody else.
Tyvek and a supplied air respirator were absolutely necessary when I was working with Imron paint in a commercial vehicle body shop - nasty stuff until it catalyzed, tough as hell after it finished curing. The DuPont rep was very informative about how badly our body would react to the overspray...
Im kinda proud of changing the culture around ear protection in the lab I work at. Took two years, but now people get bad looks for not wearing them and it has gotten rare. Also, our aprons are made from some heavy polymer sheetmaterial, they are kindoff awesome. We wear them when working with concentrated acids (always over a labcoat), so you look like you are about to dissolve your latest victim. Im seeing high compliance.
We had aprons that looked like those x-ray aprons the person at the doctors office wears. (Without the lead sheeting obv.) People generally wore those when doing what we called "bucket chemistry" that could splash you where your labcoat wouldn't protect you.
One more thing about dust masks/medical masks is that we use them all the time in microbio undergrad labs now because you are less likely to contaminate your samples by breathing on them
@@That_Chemist on the topic of safety glasses that look dorky, I would rather look like a total dork and wear those safety glasses if it means the difference between permanent and irreversible blindness and keeping my eyesight. I do amateur chemistry as a hobby and I can assure you that I take safety protocols and appropriate PPE very seriously, for example when working with corrosive materials like sulphuric acid or sodium hydroxide I wear splash and dust resistant chemical safety goggles and a full face shield over the top of the chemical safety goggles
Safety glasses are SSS-Tier. Had a lab accident last month in which I sprayed my face with hot 20% H2O2 and NaOH when I was trying to quench it while tired and overworked. Definitely would've lost my eyesight if I didn't have my glasses on.
Crime scene investigator here, rarely a chemist but I wear the PPE more than most people. A good practice with nitrile gloves is to put on one pair of blue then put two or more pairs of black on top of them. When your gloves get contaminated you can just go to the next layer and when you get to blue you know it's time to put more pairs on. When I started doing this it saved me so much time that I used to spend trying to put gloves on sweaty hands.
Not PPE but nice things to be/do ; trimmed nails, trimmed/shaved facial hair, short/attached hairs About PPE ; sizing is super duper important ! Lose PPE is as dangerous as nothing ! Last ; quality of PPE (do not bargain on that) and maintenance/availability of said PPE and (in)formation(s) about their usage Yup, safety is my jam... Maybe because i'm a NRBC specialist :D
"nice things to be/do ; trimmed nails, trimmed/shaved facial hair, short/attached hairs" this helps promote *other types of chemistry* which might be desirable for the experimentalist ;)
I'd also like to add the relative importance of what one should or shouldn't be wearing underneath PPE. Your fire resistant lab coat is not going to save you if your spandex yoga pants catch fire and melt into your skin.
There are also hazards that PPE won't help necessarily, but there's equipment that can help. I think a sharps container should be on there because of the DCM finger incident
I had a friend who worked for the New York State Department of Labor. She got certified as an OSHA inspector. She owned a hardhat. But she was supposed to wear steel-toed shoes, and she was a rather petite woman with tiny feet - nobody manufactured safety shoes small enough for women's feet. Eventually they found someplace that did, and I saw her shoes - they looked like everyday loafers.
not sure what brand your friend used, but Xena Workwear does actual cute steel-toe shoes and boots. they have lots of variations for specific industry requirements too.
Theres a dozen military contractors that make steel and composite toe boots in every single size and width that a U.S. citizen might have. You can get surplus unissued for like $40. Some have size zips which I think would be useful.
@@Matt-xc6sp Well my friend died a couple of years ago, not from foot injuries, but she had really tiny feet. I felt like a Sasquatch when I saw my shoes on the floor next to hers. Being she was OSHA trained, she used to make a big deal about safety equipment - fire alarms, CO monitors, safety goggle, seat belts in the car. I miss her a lot.
My lab coat went from sweat rings under the armpit to slightly yellow ones, to dark yellow ones to brown ones and now has black circles under the armpits
I'm at a vocational school, training to become a bio lab technician and a few months back during microbiology practise somebody got some of their sample of pond water squirted in their eyes, by accident. While nothing immediatly bad happened, the next day this person appeared with a massive pink eye and apparently such an itchyness in their eyes that they developed a desire to scratch their eyes out. They had this pink eye situation for about 10 days. Since then everyone wears their safety goggles always. Although I hate looking through the microscope with it.
You can remedy the issue with getting your hand stuck halfway in a glove by putting on a thin cotton glove before. This also makes working in the lab with gloves in hot summers without AC MUCH more bearable.
In my organic chemistry 2 lab course, we were told that as long as we already had eyeglasses on, we didn't have to wear lab glasses, lab goggles weren't even available. This includes people with the skinniest glasses imaginable, working with concentrated sulfuric, fuming nitric and concentrated hydrochloric acid!!! 😬 On the topic of laser glasses, I still have some vision impairment, mostly in my left eye, because there was a laser experiment on my campus, where everyone inside the room was of course wearing appropriate laser goggles. However, it was on ground level and right next to the main square of our campus, such that stray laserbeams caused multiple people to complain about having been negatively impacted. The idea that random high power laserbeams can just escape from this room and hit any of the hundreds of people having lunch there still makes me avoid looking in the direction of that classroom.
Laser story is just whyyyyyy... If you have all these laser glasses you're clearly under no illusions about bad things happening if the beam goes wrong place.
@@sealpiercing8476 there was a group of like 15 people watching into the room from ~50 meters and saying stuff like: hey do you see those green lasers, I wonder if that's dangerous, then getting hit in the face once in a while.
@@That_Chemist in general our university isn't really the safest. The story above is from only 2 years ago. In another one of these organic chemistry labs a clumsy student in my class was fucking around with pouring diethyl ether in a separatory funnel. For some reason(maybe he had a bit too much of the ether fumes) he did this above his slowly cooling oil bath, which had been cooling down from 160C, as you can expect, he got distracted and poured a full 100 ml of ether INTO THE OIL BATH. I heard a loud: phoomph, and turned around to see his entire fume hood covered in oil, which was now cooling and solidifying on the walls. Instead of evacuating (because of the ether fumes), the old woman that was our lab assistant pulled out a 2L bottle of hexane, handed it to him and said: this stuff can help you clean up the fat, it's carcinogenic so be careful. He was hesitant, upon which she said: oh so I am supposed to get cancer because you made a mistake? Go clean. This student wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, he once sent me a death threat because I told him that his written part in our project was in such bad English that I couldn't even understand it. He dropped out a year later after getting a 1.4 on a calculus exam, while cheating with 2 pieces of paper full of notes taped to the bottom of his desk.
@@MODElAIRPLANE100 Hexane isn't even that good at cleaning most oil, you will always be left with a layer of residue. In my experience, the best way to deal with oil is a binding agent like sawdust, followed by soapy water on paper towels. If you have to use a solvent, acetone works just as badly as hexane.
When I was student, wearing white lab coat reminded me often that one should always wear full basic set of PPE equipments (Lab coat/glasses/glove) with paper towel in the pocket regardless how trivial you think what you need to do. Even from just a one semester of use, I always found at least one stain that I cannot explain the source from memory or lab note. Sometimes those stains didn't matched physical characteristic of any chemical used in the lab. With that experience, it would be utter hubris to believe that I can control when situation like spill or contamination would occur.
You missed the biggest negative for lab goggles: fogging up. I would have loved to have a group labcoat washing in undergrad, as I wouldn't really want to mix labcoat with random laundry.
I worked part time in a food lab where we basically checked nutritional content to validate them for stores. All the samples were disgusting and those lab coats got filthy very quick. Luckily they had protocols for washing them
Re: 7:58 - you forgot to mention working with explosives (or making them inadvertently) as a reason to wear earmuffs. You never know when a fuel and oxidizer you’re working with will suddenly go “BANG” on contact.
About lab shoes, damn in middle school, the whole school was "soxks only", so it felt amazingly safe to walk with only socks on chemistry lab floor with sometimes puddles there. Thankfully (i think) they never used THAT dangerous/corrosive chemicals, but still a safety risk.
While I was at the store the other day, to my surprise they had 3 different materials available for reusable dish washing gloves - you bet your bottom dollar I went for nitrile
I have a love/hate relationship with nitrile gloves. I wear them all the time when I'm cleaning, but I hate wearing them while skinning out anything (I'm a taxidermist, mostly work on birds). In theory it's safer to wear them, but skinning is so tactile that even the thin extra layer of the gloves makes it harder to do properly. Add to that that they don't protect against cuts and they're basically useless to me. I can't clean without them anymore though, and being that I work with dead animals I clean a LOT. My hands are so much softer now!
To my knowledge the big advantage with cotton for fire protection is that cotton doesn't MELT. Nylon, Polyester, and any other fabrics that are basically plastic with melt and turn into burning Napalm, I'm not even exaggerating. I'm sure it's possible to make Aramid lab coats kinda like how Aramid military BDU exists, only problem is it's VERY expensive. Like $250+ for an Aramid or "Nomex" shirt Edit: wow I should have watched the video for a few seconds longer 😂
I once took a blacksmithing class at a re-enactment site. We were told to wear an outer layer of cotton or wool - jeans, sweatshirts etc - and NOT ONE STITCH of synthetic that a spark could land on. I hadn't packed clothes like that for the event, but the gift shop had some cotton sweatshirts with neat designs on them, so I bought one. And I borrowed a pair of jeans from my daughter-in-law - she and I wore the same clothes and shoe sizes then. After she fell out of a canoe later in the event I loaned her my clothes and spare shoes.
@@chri-k It is a priority. First is having fun. Second is disposal of everything, obviously it has to be in the atmosphere, third is safety, fourth is making the most yellow Tar in the world, and last is dominating the Lost art of the 102% Yellow Tar Synthesis! The world will crumble!
I want to say that going from workplaces with AMAZING safety and ppe standards to a workplace with minimal to no safety or ppe standards (i.e. using eyewash stations as hangars and as a dish to store loose screws and bolts), PPE IS IMPORTANT!!! never skip on your own safety or the safety of those around you. The unimagainable number of ways you can harm yourself or others can all be mitagated with proper protocol and ppe.
Biomed student here, gloves and glasses for intercalating agents but we had some 1M NaOH/HCl for setting solutions to a certain pH and we didn’t get glasses. Also no glasses for boiling agar.. I’m buying some right now. Didn’t realize the stupidity in the moment, was more busy trying to remember/follow the protocol.
I worked in a BL-2 lab at a university and we had to wash our own lab coats...problem was that you have to autoclave them before taking them home to wash. Something about that process caused them to develop really bad stains, so when you washed it you had to bleach it like 5 times to get the stains out. We only washed our lab coats once in the over a year I was there, it was gross 🤢. Now I work for a normal company, we don't even work with anything dangerous and our lab coats get laundered regularly by a laundry service. Much better.
If you can get one, use a motorized full face respirator, it doesn't make you feel like you're forcing air, and also you don't have the secondary face mask that is anti fogging but also limits what you can see. It's also better because positive pressure means even if it's not perfectly fitted you're still mostly safe. Another one is the metallic (over-)gloves, basically only good for working with solvents, and super expensive. Mail gloves are great if you're doing stuff that involves cutting
I once had a safety compliance officer travel 1.5km across a mine site to yell at me for not wearing a hard hat. I was a delivery guy, offloading a low bed truck by hand in a lay down yard by myself. Bruh, if zeus decides to smite me today, your plastic nob protector ain't gunna do shit.
That’s the thing, he doesn’t give a shit about whether or not you get smote. He’s just there to eliminate legal liability in case Zeus gets trigger happy.
I visited a Skoda car factory and in one of their departments they said that they don't need to wear hard hats as all things which can fall onto them are around a metric ton so they die no matter if they wear it or not.
@@bneskylights1152 most surely not. Just too german. But if, lets say a mine or construction site, is designated as ppe site its better to always enforce it even if a specific job doesnt need it, because a little slack can easily grow, which in that environment quickly causes accidents and can therefore not be allowed
A funny piece of PPE I have at my uni is a rubber hose chopped up into many short pieces and each little piece basically halved lengthwise. Before handling hot glassware we put those on our thumb and index fingers and handle hot glass like that like when taking glassware out of the desiccator or something.
Sounds like your uni budget is limited if they have to resort to using sections of rubber hose instead of actual gloves and/or tools. In theory this is better than nothing and something that may work in a pinch. Overall, this seems sus!
That's a marvelous idea. I will get some rubber tubing and put cut up pieces near the dishwasher, for handling items that have just been sprayed with scalding hot water and a concentrated base.
lab aprons, on top of lab coats, really come in handy when handling large amounts of dyes, pigments and other materials that stain, and are hard to wash out from lab coats or other PPE speaking of lab coats, in my experience they're normally dark blue in industrial labs rather than white, which I quite like
In my university (I'm undergrad), the postgrad demonstrators and the lecturer running the lab wear dark blue lab coats. Whereas the undergrads and technicians wear white. I assume this is to separate degree levels, and so that you know who to ask for help, but I do wish we wore blue
vinyl gloves are essential for working with nitric acid of concentrations of 86% and above. While it is uncommon to work with fuming nitric acid, if you were to spill even a drop of it onto latex or nitrile gloves they would spontaneously burst into flames, melting the nitrile/latex gloves into your han, making them almost impossible to remove. vinyl gloves have decent resistance against this and will not catch on fire or even heat up, and it takes time for the nitric acid to penetrate the vinyl gloves. They are extremely useful in some situations
Cool note on the full face respirator, sometimes (at least in semiconductors fabs and subfabs) there's options for supplied breathing aid through hoses. It's like air conditioning for your face, so it makes it more tolerable to breathe. Also you don't have to try to inhale through the filter carts, since you have air forcing it's way into the mask. Turns easily into an S tier mask
imo full face masks with filters are S tier already. The one thing i always find irritating is the exposure rating when using a P3 filter (on a full face mask), you can stay in a room 500 times longer than without a respirator when i imagine room with fine lead or t-carbide dust and think about how meany breaths i'd be willing to take, then multiply that number by 500, it's still zero. Hoses are definetly superior
@@tobbleboii5988 fully agree. One tool demo I was working on had specifically more dangerous than normal gases, but there was no breathing air hookup. I was pissed when they told me I had to use carts. It's hot and uncomfortable, and no matter what kinda filter I'm using, there's some of the danger that gets through. I don't care if the filter is good for 3 months after opening. The hose is good until it's broken
@@trail_mix24 sadly there's no hose for my respirator i could buy, so i've built one myself. Hacky safety equipment is always a gamble but it's easy enough to ckeck if it's tight and probably better than filters. Especially since i don't have a filter for everything i'm working with what kinda gasses do you get exposed to in semicon fabs?
Fully approve of the choice of the quick latching respirator you showed. Most people seem to not realize they exist but they make things so much easier to put on and take off which makes me much more willing to properly use my respirator when needed!
Someone I used to be in the lab with had A pair of prescription lab glasses that were bought by her industrial placement provider, didn’t even realise they were a thing let alone companies would buy them for you lol.
The goggles I got in undergrad actually looked really cool! I was dissapointed when I graduated and got hired at my current lab, they didn't want me using them so I was forced to downgrade to safety glasses
Big one for people with animal dander allergies working in biomedical or biological research labs that have mice. Keep an N-95 or KN-95 mask in your pocket or always put it on before entering the room since you might not realize that mice have been brought into the main lab room until you feel the swelling of your lymph nodes. This paired with a lab coat and safety goggles is pretty good as long as you manage to find a way to keep the goggle from fogging up
@@Kumquat_Lord That's why I wear Uvex goggles. They cover better than regular lab goggles, are WAY more comfortable, they look cooler, and they provide impact resistance.
I was working in a brick yard as a summer job a number of years ago. Another worker and I were standing as a forklift operator brought a pallet of paving stones into that section of the yard. He hit a bump about 2 meters away from us. Turns out someone had taken a couple stones off the pallet and had cut the strapping to do so, however the strapping was still holding on even though it was cut. The operator had assumed the pallet was still strapped up and therefore wasn't worried about moving it. Naturally as he hit the bump the whole pallet spilled paving stones onto the ground in front of the forklift and right up to and onto our feet. Thankfully we were far enough away that there were just hitting our toes and didn't blow out our shins, but I certainly was thankful for my steel toes. Remember, you may not think it likely that you'll make a mistake requiring PPE, but you can never underestimate the stupidity of others.
I learned the hard way that vinyl gloves don't really protect against wood stripper. Things got tingly fast! That was probably what made me first buy some nitrile gloves.
Make sure laser safety goggles are the right wavelength, not just power! Different lasers need different goggles depending on the wavelength. Also, you need them for laser engravers/cutters too. That's why I know about them.
This is a story where I leared how important ppe is. I once had a really terryfying contamination in my kitchen. When I was 14, I was preparing some very toxic and corrosive chemical called 'pineapple on pizza'. I was really dumb and didn't have any ppe on me, so when I took the contaminated pizza out of the oven, some oil splashed everywhere and hit my eye. I lost some eye sight for a few days, but I was okay later. Really terryfying.
I love these videos. I FINALLY got me Hazmat operations level certification and realized how much I actually love it, and wanna get my technician level. These videos have really increased my passion for it.
The problem with most heat resistant gloves is that they are made of fabric and don't stop hot liquids (like water on top of the bottle caps in freshly autoclaved bottles). So, you can still burn yourself when picking up wet objects that are hot. The big problem with cryo gloves is the lack of tactile sensation and grip. I've had a little microcentrifuge tube slip out of my cryo glove and fall down to the bottom of the -80°C freezer which meant I had to take everything out of the freezer to recover my tube...
An added bonus you'll find in (most) Steel Toe boots that's not guaranteed with all other work boots is decent electric-hazard protection. I've certainly tripped a couple breakers (that shouldn't have been on to begin with) stepping on the ends of live cables before. One piece of PPE you didn't cover that I hate are disposable shoe covers. Slipping those around most work boots is a pain in the butt, they tear easily, they're a slipping hazard, and you have to swap them out too many times over the course of a day - Especially if your work involves frequent trips in and out of the building.
thats why i wear full plate over my bullet resistant armor fitted over motorcycle gear which goes over my airtight spacesuit. safety first at all times
Red Wings makes, under their "Worx" brand, shoes that *look* like normal boring tennis shoes (and don't feel too far off), but actually have aluminum toes. Obviously no replacement for real safety-toe boots, but also a huge safety improvement over soft-toe running shoes.
These are for roofers, they grip better than boots on wooden trusses, and also are less likely to damage sacking and carpets, or track dirt into places. There's a brand of tennis shoes in Australia who make safety rated versions because many roofer and carpenters requested them.
I would have liked to have them when I was taking the subway to work every day. I once got a nasty pinch from a subway door closing very close to my foot. And the stairways in the th stations have metal surfaces on the steps, and when the weather is wet, you easily slip and go down the stairs on your butt - to the concrete floor at the bottom.
Am I the only one that gets excited about PPE? I do construction, competition shooting, and race cars, and every single person I'm around can't hear shit and half of them can't see shit. Eyes and ears are so hard to replace and so easy to protect.
So here's a fun little story for you guys. I work at an Indian restaurant and takeaway and today the filter above the hob needed cleaning. My boss put bleach, soap powder, and something other powder into the sink and then told me to pour the boiling water into the sink. Everything then started violently reacting and fuming, so I asked if the mystery powder is ammonium based drain cleaner and surprise surprise it was. So ofc all the gases filled the kitchen (where food was still being cooked) I started choking and I had to flee the kitchen. My boss then told me he'd been doing that for 20 years and I told him it was really dangerous and then I left early. Even tho I was in there a max of 10 minutes my head still hurts 4 hours ltr
I have more safety at my home lab than my college chemistry lab. I might have had a few spills at my home lab, but I have never had an acid burn at home, only in the school lab. They don't provide Nitrile gloves, but I have them at home.
As a pest control licensee I wear a respirator every day while I spray or go under houses. I don’t fit check beyond breathing out with my hand on the exhaust, but I’m clean shaven and my mask fits well. By far my favorite piece of ppe, I wear goggles with the mask instead of getting a full face
for electronics production there is actually a special lab coat that is ESD safe so it sort of preventd sparks but it is only one part of an ESD safe place, as it also involvs the right footwear and floors
@@That_Chemist ESD sparks even ones you might not notice are to a semiconductor what a lightning strile is to your house. it proberbly dosn't destroy it and they have rateings on how much they can withstand. however this damage can sevearly shorten a devices lifespan. wich isn't a huge deal in consumer applications where it just get's returned. in industry it kind of sucks because a production line being down gets expensive fast. in medical, militaty and aerospace loss of service just isn't acceptable. so ESD is a risk we can prevent and so we do. fun fact: one of the possible causes for the hindenburg disaster could have been an Electostatic discharge that happened when docking TL;DR assembeling your pc on a carpet floor is proberbly fine. however when DELL builds a thousend pc's it is more economical to not have them fail early
Excellent tier list! Fully agree on the shoes: many people will complain the shoes that are available (and mandatory) don't fit them. Note that they really should also protect you from static electricity. Goggles should be worn when people do a task where splashing is expected. People getting acid or base in their eyes because they "forgot" to wear goggles is a far too common occurrence. They are too uncomfortable to wear all day (sweat etc.), but accidents regularly make managers propose a "goggles-only" policy, which no one wants. Nitrile gloves are indeed OK for most chemicals, if worn for a short period. We get all the chemicals we use in the lab assessed by our glove provider of choice, to know what material and thickness to use. In a university lab, the amount of chemicals may be a bit too high to get that done, but I am sure that you can get a good idea if you ask. Ensure that it is easy to find out the required glove type! Helmets: in pilot plants (and definitely in production), the biggest risk is not something falling on your head, but your head hitting something. Plants tend to be full of pieces of metal that stick out waiting for a head to hit them. Finally: getting people to wash their PPE can indeed be an issue. Lab and plant supervisors should ensure their people always look clean: this will make any fresh spills easy to detect and will prevent people get hurt.
As a welder cotton clothes are some of the safest things we wear, even safer than leather sometimes because 1: you know something's wrong because you can feel the heat 2: it doesn't hurt you immediately, hiving you a chance to get to safety and put out the fire before having to assess, and 3: it's not going to melt to your skin or shrink under heat.
A respirator is Not automatically a "gas mask". It can serve that function Only with specific, correct cartridges for the hazards that will occur in a particular situation. But, yes, organic vapour cartridges will keep you from smelling farts.
I would Not say that. In fact, I would say that it is a Very Poor substitute for a gas mask. But that does not rule out the possibility of it being 'converted'. Personally, I would Much Prefer a proper gas mask if there was a need for one. There are some significant Obvious differences. People would be well served by knowing the limitations of Any protective gear.
Those F tier face shields saved me from a lot of trouble once. I was setting up an oligonucleotide synthesis when a line snapped and sprayed me in the face with phosphoramidite dissolved in acetonitrile. Fortunately my company allowed me to wear a face shield instead of safety glasses and I took them up on that because I wear glasses and they didn't have any safety glasses that fit well over my glasses. I recon it saved me from getting acetonitrile in my mouth/nose
I really respect your outlook on safety, it's necessary and in most cases ignorance in the lab is NOT bliss... Working with some TMAH soon; looked up some case reports of dermal exposure, and OH BOY.
I was surprised at the toxicity of TMA salts as well! I made tens of grams of tetremethylammonium trifluoromethoxide and related perfluoroalkoxides, meanwhile I was worried about the fluorophosgene and HF it made in the presence of water, but it also had tetramethylammonium!!!
It makes me sad how many people don’t use the dust mask PPE tends to go underrated especially in the blue collar world. The amount of guys who act like if it doesn’t hurt you then you’re not working is too damn high. So you’ll see guys start cutting into concrete or using chemicals and breathing in the fumes and dust and act like “nothing I can’t handle” for years. So yeah it’s pretty useless most of the time, but god damn if there’s chemicals in the air, use some damn PPE. You can’t live if you can’t breathe.
you should see the list in some procedures talked about by the high-energy chemistry Klapötke group. They mention chainmail gloves, titanium face shields, and mention a supplier for heavy leather aprons in one paper. Of course they're playing with things like azidoazide azide and hexanitrohexazidowurzitane. no, that's not a typo, it is chemical formula is C6 H6 N12 O12 and anything organic with twice as much nitrogen as carbon is going to be pretty damn frisky, as Derick Lowe says, the most astonishing thing isn't that it blows up, with that formula you expect it to blow up, the most astonishing thing is that it exists as a stable crystal at room temperature for longer than it takes the electrons to realize what you just did to them. Klapötke's PPE lists and procedures are legendary, since they work with things where a single drop, stored in the dark at cryogenic temperatures, will explode hard enough to break an NMR machine.
When you feel too comfortable in dangerous circumstances: stop and re-think what you are doing. Twice. Three times. Think of your loved ones, unless you don't have any. I work on heights, mostly 50-70m above the ground (say, 150-200ft). Two years ago I was a witness of someone climbing with no protection gear. When I asked the guy, he just shrugged and started climbing anyways. Interestingly his colleague broke a toe that day, a metal frame fell on his foot while he didn't wear protective shoes, 'cause "it was too hot". Yes, they got all necessary protection from the employer, yet the attitude was their own. Two contractor workers died recently (last month). There was excessive icing all over the constructions, and they kept working with all the bad habits they gained over the years. It all happened within two weeks, and shook my coworkers much, some were shocked "but how?", others did some deep re-thinking. Don't make the *mistake* of being over-confident! Yes, I felt over-confident too. Now I try to maintain humility over routine. It is just a matter of time until something fails *while* you are vigil and careful. Why shorting the time?
i ride unicycles, just a few days ago some tard crossed the street and nearly clipped me if i hadnt evaded them. i was going 30mph and would have planted side on to their vehicle. decided not to wear a helmet that day but lucky i didnt need it that time.
nitrile and latex gloves do have a weakness though, both are ridiculously flammable, as NileRed figured out a few years back that nitric acid over ~80% or so (or was it 86%? idk), due to being a very potent oxidizer at that point, will happily light both nitrile and latex on fire, and from what I've heard, the window of time you have to get the gloves off if they start combusting before your hands completely go up in flames is really short, about 3 seconds for latex, and 4 for nitrile. I am NOT a chemist, let alone one in an academic setting, I just find the topic really interesting despite how dangerous it can be if things go wrong.
About cryo gloves, that large opening is intentional. If you do get some cryogenic material down in them, you can very rapidly whip them off and just kinda throw it off of your hand with a quick motion without having to use the other hand that's probably holding the thing with the cryogenic material in the first place. The same goes for welding gloves, and, of all things, the shoes you see chefs wear, which are kinda like specialized solid crocs that they can rapidly whip their foot out of should some boiling water or grease or whathaveyou slosh and get into the shoe.
If you’re looking for more dextrous heat resistant gloves try TIG welding gloves! They’re designed to let the user easily manipulate the filler wire and are a lot more flexible than most others I’ve used.
I didn't have "in case the glass window above the cube farm falls down and shatters" as a reason to wear close-toed shoes at a national lab, but it happened, and I was glad I was prepared.
I've recently started working at an incineration waste treatment & water treatment plant as my first proper job after my chem degree. It can be a shame to see the lack of PPE worn around, normally by non chemists, on the site. We had a one week shut down to clean out/ do maintenance on the incinerator ( clean out slag etc) and you can just see guys going in no mask or respirator, gloves (only sometimes and probably because they're cold) and no hearing protection. Just basic PPE (hardhat, boots and high vis overalls). Just knowing all the stuff that goes in the before being processed by water treatment with all the heavy metals like Cadmium and mercury, halogen residue and some low level radioactive stuff. There just get in there with their hydraulic drills and stuff breathing it all in and getting it on their skin and they literally just don't care. They'll happily open "fatal if inhaled" containers in basic PPE.
An important thing that wasn't mentioned about laser safety goggles is that they don't all protect from all wavelengths, and the goggles can have rated to different exposure levels across the wavelengths it is protecting you from. Goggles can completely protect you from violet lasers but offer no protection from IR lasers. Each pair of proper laser safety glasses has a code on one of the lenses detailing what wavelengths it is rated to protect for as well as the level of protection. You should always read the specification of a pair of laser safety goggles before putting them on and expecting to be protected. You could go instantly blind while wearing goggles because you aren't wearing the correct type. Any optics lab with any respect for safety (and workplace safety regulations) has a multitude of safety precautions in order to prevent blindness. A lot of labs (particularly those with class 4 visible and class 3B and above IR lasers) have physical barriers (walls) to physically block laser light from reaching the door. Some are built like darkroom with the rotating air-lock like door, and many have automatic kill switches that immediately turn off the laser if a door is opened or someone enters the laser exclusion area. I'm a graduate student at the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona. Virtually every lab has high power lasers in it, many of them well into class 4. We had to take a laser safety training course before we could even dream of working in a lab or taking a lab course. You do not mess with lasers. They are incredibly useful and fascinating tools, but they absolutely deserve and demand respect. It only takes one mistake and you can instantly go permanently blind. It's not like some of the stories in the chempolation series where being quick on your feet to wash out your eyes can save your sight. You can instantly cook your retinas before your body even recognizes there's a problem. Wear the correct pair of goggles. It's not a game.
Another welder's tip: Spring for elkskin gloves. they're just about on par with leather for heat resistance (I present the slag damage on the back of my left glove as proof), but with soooooo much more dexterity and tactility. Plus they come in white. I use Tillman 750 gloves, and recommend them highly. Size up, not down with these because they will shrink up with prolonged high heat.
2:30 my lab pays for a pair of prescription lab glasses for each analyst who wants a pair, so that's cool. it definitely helps incentivize it. we have issues with people wearing contacts when they're not supposed to. personally i prefer the over-glasses safety glasses; mine offer more coverage than the ones you showed.
Lab goggles will always be my #1 S-tier, saved my eyes once when there was a compromised tube that leaked gas from the student next to me into a combined sink. Used my striker to start my Bunsen burner and ended up burning my (at the time wonderfully long) hair and got first degree burns on my face and neck. It's been roughly 6 years since then, and now I almost exclusively use lab goggles when donning PPE that calls for eye protection in any lab setting. I use my old lab glasses when I work in my garage now 😅
I work in a bio lab, and we don´t use PPE but SPE (Sample protective equipment) as a kitchen has more dangerous chemicals (vinegar) than we do, however human secretions are dangerous to the samples we work with.
I'm in a bio lab and we only wear glasses when there's managers around (we work shifts so that's only about a third of the time we 're there). Reason being we only work with tested plasma products on their way to becoming meds, so there isn't much of a risk going on. Like the top 5 things on our (short) hazardous chemical list is comprised of our cleaning supplies and sulfuric acid which we're only using in another lab that doesn't want to staff ppl on weekends so we're doing their work for them half the time. Needless to say I'm in full PPE when handling the acid, the guy who showed me how to do the work didn't even wear gloves and had the fume hood open as he poured it from a dispenser straight into his sample that was mostly water...
This is super fascinating to watch for me as a welder/sheet metal fabricator, since I use a ton of these myself (replace the lab coat with a welding jacket and arguably the only one missing would be my welding helmet). It’s really cool to see a different perspective bc I know I would rate some of these differently (no shit right? We’re using them for different hazards) for example steel toed boots as you might expect would totally be s tier for me, and I would always rate a cotton jacket over a synthetic one. On the other hand, I love seeing what ratings you give that I would give too in my own field, like safety glasses and ear protection; sometimes I just be walking around at work wearing that shit to feel cozy. Your eyes are protected from neighboring angle grinder usage and you get to holler “WHAT” if anyone asks you a question whether you hear them or not because it never gets old
