Your guarantee for standardised clothing: HAVEP Protective wear
The risks and dangers that are present on a work floor, become clear after a risk-assessment that each employer has to do as part of the health and safety regulations. In the first place you can reduce the risks by applying certain measures in work circumstances, like well-protected machines and safe work methods. An accident can always happen. In that case, personal protection equipment (PPE) is there to protect you. HAVEP has various product ranges that protect against one or more risks. The (European) law for PPE applies to this type of clothing.
PPE regulation (EU) 2016/425
This regulation for personal protection equipment contains the requirements that protective clothing has to meet. This regulation exists since 1989 (called directive 89/686/EEG at the time) and was updated on March 2016 (regulation 2016/425). There is a transitioning period at the moment and it is not until April 2018 that clothing will be certified according to this new regulation.
The development of clothing standards like EN ISO 11611 (welder’s clothing) and EN ISO 20471 (enhanced visibility clothing) is done based on EU directives. And because clothing certifications have a validity of 5 years, the adjustments of the new directive will automatically apply to HAVEP clothing.
HAVEP protective wear meets one or more of the following EN- and ISO standards and with that, the requirements of the European regulations. Regulation 2016/425 has (just as the previous directive 89/656/EC) three risk categories. The higher the wearer’s risk, the stricter the requirements the clothing has to meet.
Class I: low risk
This clothing is not checked by an independent test facility, but by the manufacturer itself. Rain clothing for example, falls under this category.
Class II: moderate risk
A one-off test garment is sent to an independent test facility to be tested, also known as “type testing”. This category contains clothing for welding and visibility clothing.
Class III: high risk
The clothing from this category is tested by an independent test facility on an annual basis. Think of clothing that offers protection against the risk of chemicals and an electric arc.
Standardised clothing can be recognised by its CE-label. This label contains pictograms indicating the risk that the wearer is protected from, the name of the manufacturer and the CE-number. The clothing contains a maintenance instruction. This explains the pictograms and contains information about maintenance, sizing and specific instructions that the user must follow.