PPE means you are exposing the person to the hazard and you are wrapping them up in some way to protect them from that hazard.

In the case of a respirator, a chemical is released, so a barrier is put on the person, as opposed to controlling the hazard at source. That relies on the person keeping that barrier in place for the whole time they are exposed to the hazard. It assumes that anyone who walks into the workplace is going to have to put that protection on and maintain it while they are in that environment. It is really not controlling at source, it is controlling at the person, hence the PPE.

It’s a demanding risk control in terms of management. A director seeing someone not wearing their PPE correctly, or maybe not wearing it at all, can question and find out where the process has broken down. They may discover that they don’t have an effective management process they can use, and so prompts a move back up the hierarchy of controls.

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