Document Moo7Y1nz7OKkjdEnD3ZQwZrna

19--Personal Protective Equipment first be blown from them by means of com pressed air at not more than 10 to 20 psi of pressure, through a fixed nozzle directed towards an exhaust hood The cleaners should wear dust-tight goggles Dust filters should not be cleaned by brushing Then filters, screens, headbands, and cot ton facelets should be removed If the res pirators are coated with paint or other foreign matter, they should be soaked for three hours in a cleaning solution of 1J* pounds of com mercial alkaline base cleaner and 7 gal of water Fresh paint can be wiped off with a clean rag moistened in alcohol Thorough nnsing is always necessary before use Respirators having no visible accumulation of foreign matter should be scrubbed in warm, soapy water, nnsed, disinfected, then nnsed again and dried Knitted facelets should be washed in warm, soapy water, nnsed and dned before reuse Dirty or oily elastic headbands should be washed in warm, soapy water and nnsed The water should be warm to remove perspiration and hair oil from the elastic fabnc Rubber parts should never be dned by di rect application of heat or sunlight Employees should be instructed to wipe off oil, grease, and other harmful substances from headbands and other parts of the respira tor as soon as they collect They should be warned not to use solvents to clean plastic or rubber parts Most face and mouthpieces for respiratory protective devices are made from rubber or rubber-hke compounds Usually hand brush ing or agitation in a washing machine, using detergent and warm water is sufficient to clean them Hypochlonte or quaternary ammonium compounds in the proper strength m aqueous solution can be used to disinfect the parts Ethylene oxide gas, handled under proper precautions, is sometimes used where large quantities of respirators must be disinfected All detergent should be nnsed from the de vice before disinfecting, except where com bination detergent and quaternary ammonium compounds (that both clean and disinfect) are used After cleaning and disinfecting, the parts should be rinsed m clean water and dried quickly It may also be desirable to nnse parts treated with quaternary ammonium compounds since their disinfecting properties continue and, except for rare cases, it will not produce a skin untabon Hot water, steam, solvents, and ultraviolet light should not be used to clean and dis infect rubber parts because they have a de teriorating effect Petroleum jelly should not be used to pre vent skin irritation from rubber facepieces, for it is harmful to rubber Disinfection and the use of clean cotton facelets will eliminate the need for a salve Respirators should be turned m at the end of each shift to be cleaned and repaired if necessary They should be disinfected at least once a week when retained by the same em ployees In some plants, maintenance service for respirators, as well as for other kinds of per sonal protective equipment, can be effec tively provided by traveling service carts (Fig 19-39) Where a number of respirators are in regu lar use, a central station is often set up for their care and maintenance, as well as for the care and maintenance of other items of per sonal protective equipment Each employee is then provided with two respirators and either a locker or a hook at the central station Some plants have found that if two res pirators are assigned to each man, equipment lasts more than twice as long This plan is most desirable when cleaning cannot be done between shifts or before the next scheduled shift Under such a plan marked respirators are turned in daily or weekly, depending upon use, for cleaning, disinfection, inspection, and repair The worker then uses the second res pirator until the first can be serviced Another plan is to keep quantities of dis infected respirators on hand for groups This plan works where individual needs vary, but in such a plan the user is not so easily charged with responsibility If the same respirator is used by several persons, it is always well to clean and disinfect it after each use Respirators should be marked to indicate to whom they are assigned The method of identification should be permanent enough so that the marking cannot be changed inad vertently or without effort 506