Hearing protection against noise… earmuffs or ear defenders, which completely cover the ear…earplugs, which are inserted into the ear… semi-inserts (also called canal-caps), which cover the entrance to the ear.

Head protection: Hard hats for protection against objects falling from heights and swinging objects.
• Bump caps, designed to protect from knocking against stationary objects.
• Caps and hair-nets, to protect against entanglement.

Eye protection: Safety spectacles. Similar to regular glasses but with a tougher lens. Can include side shields for additional protection.
• Eye shields.  Frame-less one piece moulded lens, often worn over normal prescription glasses.
• Safety goggles.  Made with flexible plastic frames and elastic headband.
• Face shields. Heavier and bulkier than other types of eye protector.  They protect the face, but do not fully enclose the eyes, so do not protect against dusts, mists or gases.

Foot protection: Safety boots or shoes. Normally with steel toe-caps. Can also have other safety features (e.g. steel mid-soles, slip resistant soles, insulation against heat and cold)
• Wellington boots; can be supplied with steel toe-caps
• Anti-static and conductive footwear. Designed to protect against the build- up of static electricity.

Hand and arm protection: For the hands and arms, there is a wide variety of gloves and gauntlets (leather, nitrile, latex, plastic coated, chain mail, etc.), many of which should be chosen specifically for the work involved.  There are also a number of gloves available to protect one from hand-arm vibration, but the evidence of the effectiveness of these gloves is still being debated. 
• Barrier cream

Body protection: Overalls, aprons and coveralls...
• High visibility clothing
• Harnesses for heights and confined spaces
• Clothing for cold, heat and bad weather
• Life jackets

Respiratory protection: Two main types --
• Respirators that filter contaminated air or clean it as you breathe in
• Respirators that supply clean air from an independent source

Respiratory protection equipment will be needed for work with harmful dusts, and harmful fumes and vapours, found in paints and in chemicals used in manufacturing processes. You'll use it in welding, in work with harmful substances, work in areas where large amounts of dust are present, and in work that generates dust, like disc cutters and sanders. Masks should be used even by men working enclosed CNC machines, to prevent inhalation of coolant spray, and the machining of cast iron should call for dust masks in a risk assessment.

Employees Not Using PPE
It's one thing to be thoughtlessly forced to wear PPE that is uncomfortable, makes a job more difficult, or introduces new hazards.  It is quite another for someone to flaunt their total disregard for their own safety and that of people around them.

Some of our colleagues don't like "rules"…They have a sense of rebellion, a sense of individuality -- which is a healthy thing.  But rebellion, or individuality, when it infringes other people's rights, or puts other people in danger, is not healthy for any of us. The people who got health and safety laws put into place in Britain, and through those laws got PPE for everyone -- they were rebels.  It wasn't some wonderful government of do-gooders who one day just decided that we should have some rights at work -- it was working people just like you, who argued, organised and went on strike, and got killed, in the struggle to get laws put into place to protect us, and to give us a voice, through our unions and through our safety representatives. And fortunately, for us, those rebels beat the 'system' -- they won. The laws to make work safer for all of us are in place, and we should take advantage of them.

PPE is our right, a right that other working people fought to get for us, one that a lot of people throughout the world wish they had.  In the United States, in 1999, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) finally proposed a rule requiring employers to pay for protective clothing, face shields, gloves and other equipment used by U.S. workers. But before the proposal became a standard Mr. Bush was elected to office. Since then, the U.S. Department of Labor has neglected to enact the standard. Many workers in America's most dangerous industries, including meatpacking, poultry, and construction, who have high rates of injury, are still forced by their employers to pay for their own safety gear. According to OSHA's own figures, 400,000 workers have been injured and 50 have died owing to the lack of the PPE rule. Since only 14% of U.S. workers belong to a union, we can imagine they'll be waiting a lot longer for PPE that they don't have to buy for themselves.

Very occasionally, an employee will have a legitimate medical reason that prevents them from using standard PPE.  Ear infections, for example, will preclude the use of in-ear hearing defenders. Employees can also refuse to wear PPE if it puts their safety at risk. (PPE of the wrong size could put one at risk because of it's poor fit).  Employees in such cases should ask a manager or the firm's safety representative for PPE of the correct size.

When employees simply won't use PPE, though, they create several problems:
•  They are violating company policy. Section 10 of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 states that "every employer shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that any personal protective equipment provided to his employees... is properly used."  So the employer has a legal duty to ensure that PPE is used, and this is reflected in the company's policy.  Discipline procedures could be initiated.
•  They are violating health and safety regulations. Employees also have a legal duty under Section 10 to use equipment provided for them as instructed.  The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations also dictate that employees must use any equipment or substance in accordance with any training or instruction given by the employer.  The legal position here is that the failure of employees to comply with the requirements of health and safety law could lead to dismissal under misconduct.
•   If they are injured at work and prescribed PPE was not in use, a claim for compensation will fail or a judge will reduce the amount of compensation payable, due to the employee's contributory negligence.

While it is never up to you as a Safety Rep to act as a policeman for management, you may find yourself in the awkward position of having to encourage co-operation with company policy.  You may have to deal with colleagues whose attitude is one of 'two fingers to the boss', or who think they prove their manliness by daring the forces of nature and the fickle finger of fate.

If you decide to 'poke your nose in', you might try a little reverse psychology. There's nothing 'manly' about being driven to A&E by the first-aider. Being injured in a game of rugby is one thing -- daring a machine to hurt you, and losing, impresses no one. There's nothing manly about having your bum wiped by a nurse while you're laying in a hospital bed, because you thought it was "wuss" to wear a hi-vis vest.

In consultation with management or through your safety committee, consider:
•  Has there been enough information and training for employees, to stress the importance of PPE and to teach them how to use it?
•  Is it possible to have better supervision on site to enforce the wearing of PPE?
•  Is there adequate and appropriate signage on site where PPE should be worn?
•  Is adequate storage provided for workers to store their PPE on site? (a legal requirement)
•  Is there a periodic safety rep/management inspection on which PPE-wearing can be ticked?
•  Has anyone asked employees why they are not wearing PPE?

Don't Give the Finger to PPE!
A good friend of mine was working on his car two years ago and he wasn't wearing any gloves. (Well, you don't, do ya?) He cleaned up and he scraped some black grease out from under his nails.  A few weeks later, he noticed that a nail was separating from the skin beneath it. He went to the doctor, and the doctor cut the nail, to let it grow back.  Instead, this growth appeared: 

The doctor removed the growth. And it came back. The doctor removed it a second time. (And that couldn't have been very pleasant! The finger was painful to use, and my friend is an electrician, so that finger was always in use!) And then -- you guessed it -- it came back for a third time.  A year had passed since the work on the car.

He was sent to various specialists and finally saw one specialist who referred him to an RAF consultant for a second opinion. It was then confirmed that the growth was cancerous, but fortunately, not the type that spreads. He was then booked in for an operation. If the growth was not attached to bone, the nail would be taken off and a skin graft would be applied to the end of his finger. If the growth was on the bone, he would have to lose the first joint of his finger.  In the operation, the growth was dug away and the bone was scraped.  A wedge of flesh was then cut from the foreman and grafted into place on the end of the finger.

This is the finger just after the bandages were removed, with the skin graft in place. My friend was off work for three weeks after the surgery, and of course he has to take good care of this finger, and it is constantly painful. The position at present is that the biopsy results were not clear -- abnormal cells were still present at the edge of the incision. He has yet another appointment with a plastic surgeon, and if the surgeon is not happy with what he sees, the tip of the finger will be removed.