Save your breath
November 1st 2007 Research from 3M suggests that the health and safety of employees working with reusable respirators could be being put at risk by a lack of understanding, both by users and their employers, of the need to regularly change the filters. Research revealed that 76% of employees decided when to replace filters, compared to 28% of decisions made by a supervisor, 25% by health and safety, and 18% inline with a set company policy. Companies could select more than one method, suggesting checks are in place in many organisations. In 43% of cases, the decision to change the filter is based on whether it looks old and dirty, or worn. 3M comments that this method is misleading as in some environments they will look dirty very quickly, but will still perform. To help with this issue, 3M has produced a number of tools including a filter selector wheel, flowchart posters to help selection, online filter selector, posters, filter re-order cards, record cards and tick sheets for mask maintenance. All are available free of charge from www.3m.co.uk/filtersupport. More articles from 3M UK Ltd: | 
