Of all the losses you attempt to prevent in safety, eye injuries are low-hanging fruit. Basic precautions can make a huge difference. Nine out of ten eye injuries can be prevented by wearing the right eyewear — spectacles, goggles, face shields, etc., according to government statistics. Regrettably, nearly 60 percent of workers who suffered injuries to the eye were not wearing any safety eyewear, according to an often-cited Bureau of Labor Statistics survey from the 1980s. Maybe that’s because they couldn’t see what was coming. Most injuries to eyes at work are caused by objects smaller than a pin head, according to employees who suffered these kinds of accidents. And most of these particles were flying at a speed faster than a hand-thrown object.
OSHA still requires compliance with a 1989 version of the ANSI standard that does not distinguish basic from high impact protection. Your existing inventory of safety eyewear can continue to be used. Safety distributors can give you information on new models of eye protection designed to the ANSI 2003 standard and the new marking requirements for those products.