PPE : Respiratory Protection Requirements

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Chapter : Personal Protective Equipment

Respiratory Protection Requirements

Respiratory protection requirements, your first thought might be of workers wearing respirators. The respiratory protection standard doesn’t start there, though. It begins by requiring employers to first reduce workers’ exposures, if possible, using these external measures:

• Engineering controls. Engineering controls “physically change the work environment to reduce employee exposure to air contaminants,”. If it is possible to control workers exposures through the use of ventilation, process enclosures, substitution of less hazardous chemicals, or similar “engineered” methods, you are required to do that instead of putting workers in respirators.
• Administrative controls. Administrative controls restrict “the length of time or the time of day in which an employee can be exposed,”. This type of control reduces exposures using strategies such as employee rotation and scheduling work for times when air contaminant levels are low.

If you can’t reduce workers’ exposures to airborne contaminants below the permissible exposure limit (PEL) using these strategies—or if you are in the process of putting these types of controls in place, but haven’t completely implemented them yet—you’ll have to put workers in respirators.

Identifying Hazardous Atmospheres

When you’re implementing a respiratory protection program, you’ll need to select appropriate respirators. The first question you must answer when you’re selecting respirators is, what kind of hazardous atmosphere are my workers exposed to? As with controls, you’re working from the outside—what are the hazards in the air?—in. Hazardous atmospheres may be:

• Oxygen deficient. If there’s less than 19.5% oxygen in the air, the atmosphere is “immediately dangerous to life and health.” No air-filtering respirator will correct an oxygen-deficient atmosphere; you’ll have to choose air-supplying respirators.
• Contaminated with chemicals. Nearly 500 common hazardous chemicals and many more have published nonregulatory exposure limits.
• Contaminated with biological hazards. Sometimes you need to worry about whether your workers are exposed to airborne diseases, like tuberculosis (which is spread from person to person), hantavirus (which is spread by dried animal excreta), or valley fever (which is spread by contaminated dust).
• Contaminated with radiological hazards. When radioactive materials become airborne, they can be very dangerous to workers. Special respirators are available that can remove radiological hazards from workers’ breathing air.
• Potential emergency situations. If a foreseeable workplace emergency could release airborne contaminants, you may need a respiratory protection program.

Implementing a Respiratory Protection Program

If you do have hazardous atmospheres in your workplace that cannot be eliminated through engineering or administrative controls, you will need a comprehensive respiratory protection program. 

This required written program must cover:

With more organizations hiring independent contractors to deal with economic, staffing, and business challenges—with typical duties including janitorial duties, building construction and renovation, different production activities, security, and maintenance—it's important to understand the risk of liability your organization could face if those workers aren't properly trained on safety protocols.

Sure, in theory independent contractors are responsible for their activities, including safety, and their liability is not transferred to the company that has hired them. However, in the real world it's not always so black and white. In fact, there are many situations where your organization could be liable.