What to Look for When Buying Safety Clothing in NZ
Safety clothing is a hugely important precaution in many a workplace. Hazards like debris, fire, and chemical dangers cannot be taken lightly. In a hazardous workplace, failing to make safety a priority can put your health (or even life) in serious danger.
At Amare Safety, it's our privilege to help sell New Zealanders the safety clothing they need to protect themselves from workplace hazards. It's for this reason we've composed a guide to help you figure out how to choose the right safety clothes. We want you safe, not wasting money on clothes you won't end up needing or that will prove inadequate.
Safety Clothing Means Different Things for Different Jobs
There is a huge variety of safety clothing available for sale. As should be obvious, no job is going to require all of it.
The first thing one should do before buying some of our NZ safety clothing is to figure out what workplace hazards you're likely to face. For example, a road worker needs to be visible to traffic and might also be at risk for stone and other debris getting in their eyes.
This means they should look for high visibility clothing and eye protection. A good pair of work boots also wouldn't be a bad idea, for a solid grip and to protect their feet from anything sharp or heavy.
For some, not all of that is going to be necessary. For others, it may not be enough. Perhaps you need clothing that is flame retardant or works well in wet weather. We offer those options too; you just need to decide what you're looking for.
Evaluating Your Job Conditions
It's up to a construction worker and their supervisors to determine what safety clothing they're most likely to need. Luckily, the New Zealand government's Worksafe initiative has outlined the basic principles for determining the type of equipment you may need.
Risks to all parts of the body should be considered, as this will determine how thoroughly a worker should be suiting up. It should also be noted that a company is generally legally obligated to make these proper considerations regardless. If it's unclear whether or not a hazard will pose a threat, it is best to play it safe and secure an employee against it.
Much of our safety clothing at Amare Safety manages to tackle multiple threats at once for this very purpose. For example, our flame retardant clothing tends to also be high-visibility as well.
Regardless of where you source your clothes, remember when choosing specialized safety clothing that you cannot ignore common threats (like the need for a worker to be seen) as you guard against more niche threats (such as fire). All reasonable threats to a worker's safety must be accounted for.
Make Sure Your Clothing Fits
Sizing is important when it comes to safety clothing. Ill-fitting clothing is not safe; it can snag and may even cause you to trip or stumble.
Amare Safety has a wide range of women safety clothing if they think traditional "male" cuts may be too ill-fitting. This isn't a matter of fashion; the better clothes fit, the safer they are.
Regardless of which of our lines you purchase from, choose sizing that makes sense for you. Perhaps most important is getting your pants sizing right. While any clothing can snag or cause issues, poor fitting pants are what usually cause the worst incidents in that regard.
This all may seem simple but safety clothing is all about avoiding disaster. Most days, ill-fitting clothes won't cause a major issue. Safety clothing isn't about most days; it is about those days where you're around something dangerous and a sudden jolt or stumble could mean life or death for you or a fellow employee.
Choose the safe approach every day, and on the days where it counts, you'll be dressed the way you should be.
Disposable Clothing Keeps Things Clean
Some industries, especially those related to food, medicine, or scientific research, sometimes demand a high level of cleanliness.
What you're keeping clean may vary; it may be to keep tiny bits of your skin and hair out of your work or it might be because your work involves particulates that would be dangerous or otherwise troublesome if they got outside the workspace.
In either case, this is where disposable clothing becomes a must. The benefits of disposable clothing are that there is a very low risk of them contaminating your work or yourself. These items don't have the time to collect and spread germs and particulates; used as intended, they get tossed before they can do so.
This is the same principle that applies to many disposable masks, which have proven essential in combatting the recent pandemic. Such approaches are effective enough that even the Ministry of Health includes them in their recommendations.
If your industry isn't normally too concerned about the above, but has tightened measures for the pandemic, it may be that you only need masks, rather than full bodysuits or other measures. At Amare Safety, we also offer disposable masks, similar to those many are commonly wearing to more safely go out into the public.
These masks should suit most workers fine, although they may wish to use more than one in a given day, as they'll be wearing them longer than people only traveling in public. Ideally, masks will at least be thrown away after each use.
Amare Safety Sells the Best NZ Safety Clothing Around
At Amare Safety, we make it a priority to offer a wide, quality selection of safety clothing to help workers in just about every industry. Whether you're in construction or an industrial worker, we are sure to have something that will help to keep you safe.
For inquiries or to voice any opinion, that you may have, contact us! We love to hear from customers (and potential customers) so that we can make sure everyone is getting exactly what they want.
