In this episode of the global Science of Safety Podcast, co-hosts Mark Reggers and Laurie Wells welcome guest Bev Borst, a certified occupational health nurse and technical specialist with 3M Canada Personal Safety Division. They discuss some fundamental concepts for hearing protection selection. This is part two of a two-part series on selection. You can listen to the first part here.
Tune in to hear about the many important factors to consider when employers select hearing protectors:
- Noise reduction or attenuation
- Work environment and conditions
- Audibility: hearing important sounds to do jobs safely and efficiently and
- Fit, comfort, compatibility, and ease of use.
This global podcast series provides another educational tool that you can use to help increase your knowledge and is something that you can share with others in your organization and with your friends. The goal is to help provide a global perspective and foundation for those of you new to workplace health and safety and personal protective equipment (PPE) while also providing information for more experienced professionals and complex health and safety challenges.
You can listen, subscribe to, and share this podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and most major podcast apps and platforms.
If you have any questions or topic suggestions, you can get in contact with this podcast by contacting your local 3M office or visiting our worker health and safety website. If you’d like some assistance in your workplace when it comes to the appropriate selection, use, and maintenance of PPE please contact us today.
This year the Personal Safety Division is also celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the first U.S. Government-approved 3M filtering facepiece respirator (a precursor to what is now known as the N95), and the 3M™ E-A-R™ Classic™ Earplug. To all of our customers who have trusted 3M brand PPE between then and now, thank you.
Around the world, we aim to help everyone get the job done safely today, tomorrow, and in the future.
Below is the full transcript of the podcast:
Speaker 1:
The 3M Science of Safety Podcast is a free publication. The information presented in this podcast is general only, should not be relied upon to make specific decisions. Listening to this podcast does not certify proficiency in safety and health. You should always seek the advice of a licensed or certified professional in relation to your specific work or task. Always consult the user instructions for any personal protective equipment you are using and follow local laws and regulations. Information presented is current as of the date of the podcast and requirements can change in the future. 3M owns all rights to the podcast and any reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission.
Laurie Wells:
Welcome back to our previous subscribers and welcome to our new listeners. The Science of Safety Podcast is presented by the 3M Personal Safety Division. This is a podcast that is curious about the science and systems behind workplace health and safety with a focus on personal protective equipment or PPE, used to help keep workers healthy and safe. I am Laurie Wells, one of your co-hosts, and I have the great pleasure to have Mark Reggers with me as well. We are occupational health and safety professionals who like to ask questions why, how, and please explain. Whether you are a safety professional, occupational, or industrial hygienist, someone with any level of worker health and safety responsibility in your workplace, a user of PPE, or a health and safety nerd like us, this is the podcast for you. Mark, I hope you’ve had plenty of time to enjoy some wonderful sounds since our last discussion.
Mark Reggers:
I certainly have. I did do my homework and I am hearing with a renewed appreciation for what my hearing can do for me. As an example, I honed it on the fact that I can tell when the tap water gets hot in my kitchen just by listening to it.
Laurie Wells:
Uh-huh (affirmative). And I bet you can also judge how close to full your water bottle is when you’re filling it up just based on the sound of it. Once you start paying attention, it’s really amazing how many things we learn just by our hearing alone. And most of the time, we’re not even aware of it.
Mark Reggers:
Another thing I discovered that when I was driving, I heard a siren and I knew where it was coming from. It was behind me, and that was very close by because it was getting louder. So just by my hearing, I knew to pull over quickly and of course safely at that time.
Laurie Wells:
Great example, Mark, of just what our hearing can do for us. We get auditory information about where sound is in space. We know whether it’s moving, if it’s changing. And all of this information that we’re collecting with our ears helps us make decisions about how to act and how to keep safe. So now that we have a good idea about what our hearing can do for us, let’s turn to look at what we can do for our hearing by choosing hearing protectors that are appropriate for each individual user and the work environment that they’re in.
Mark Reggers:
Now to help with our discussion, we’ve invited another one of our key 3M team members to participate. And I have the absolute pleasure to introduce Bev Borst, an occupational health nurse who hails from London, but no, not the London you are thinking of. Welcome, Bev. And please tell our listeners, who are you? Where are you from? And where are you in this wonderful world of ours?
Bev Borst:
Hello, Mark and Laurie. I am joining from our office in London, Ontario, Canada. So yes, the other London.
Laurie Wells:
Aha. Well welcome, Bev. I am so pleased you’re able to join us. You and I have known each other for a long time. And I’ve learned so much from you over the years. I know you’ve worked for 3M for many years and have a lot of experience in both respiratory and hearing protection. Would you share with our listeners a bit about your role at 3M?
Bev Borst:
Yes, Laurie. Thanks. I’ve been at 3M for almost 26 years now. Wow. It’s gone quickly. I’ll tell you. I am a certified occupational health nurse and a technical specialist focusing on hearing conservation.
Mark Reggers:
So the topic we want to tackle today is just how does an employer or a workplace go about selecting which hearing protectors to offer employees who work in noise. Now last time we spoke with Sal about the very many different types, so earplugs and earmuffs, and even some of the advanced hearing protectors with electronic capabilities. But Laurie, Bev, where does an employer start when thinking of all these options?
Laurie Wells:
Well, oftentimes the starting place, Mark, is knowing the nature and the extent of the hazard itself, and then being able to match up the hazard with the noise reduction properties, the attenuation of the hearing protector. And as we talked about in our previous podcast, there are some regulatory limits for most countries that guide how much sound or noise a person is allowed to be exposed to during a work shift. So clearly these employers must select hearing protectors that are capable of providing sufficient attenuation so that the amount or the level of attenuation can bring them down to a safe level. So clearly knowing the amount or the level of attenuation is important. And typically that’s depicted on the packaging by a number that’s been measured in a standardized way. But there’s a lot more to know than just that one number. We certainly encourage anyone to go beyond just the number when picking their hearing protector. So this is where I think Bev can give us a lot of guidance. And so Bev, this would be a good place for you to jump in.
Bev Borst:
Sure. In addition to the attenuation rating, there’s many different things the employer needs to know, and let’s start with the work environment. What is their work environment and what does the employee need to hear while doing their job in order to do their job safely and efficiently?
Mark Reggers:
Well, sorry to jump in here, but how does that work? So you are suggesting that we need to block out a certain amount of noise, but you’re also saying that we need to preserve or hear a certain amount of noise at the same time. How does that work? There sound like a conflicting objectives there.
Bev Borst:
No, you are exactly right, Mark. Hearing protectors do not completely block out the sound. It doesn’t make it so you can’t hear anything. There are physical limitations as to how much a hearing protector can reduce the sound. So even with the most effective hearing protectors, some sound will still be heard. The goal here is to go from hazardous noise to non-hazardous sound. There’s a couple ways to approach this. First, the most common method is the conventional attenuation and that’s noise reduction provided by a passive hearing protector. And passive, I mean, no electronics. The attenuation in the passive protector is the same regardless of the level of noise. These hearing protectors are designed to provide the employee or the worker with a consistent amount of attenuation throughout the workday, no matter what type of noise is there.
Laurie Wells:
So that’s understandable, Bev. So what would be an alternative to a conventional attenuation?
Bev Borst:
That’s a good question, Laurie. So the alternative to a conventional or passive hearing protector is called level dependent attenuation. That is the noise reduction provided by a level dependent hearing protector. So an earplug or an earmuff varies with the level of noise. This type of protector provides more noise reduction at high noise levels and is particularly effective for either variable noise or impulse noise. So variable noise conditions, a level dependent protector makes it easier for the workers to maintain situational awareness without having to remove their hearing protector. And then impulse noises are very short, loud, sounds such as a blast of an arc flash or the bang of a pneumatic nail gun.
Laurie Wells:
Right. And if important sounds are not audible to a worker, there are maybe that temptation to reach up and alter or even remove a hearing protector in order to hear a communication, for example, which unfortunately allows for moments of unprotected exposure and actually, those minutes of overexposure can really add up. So two things that we talk about that are important are the attenuation and also audibility when we’re selecting hearing protectors. So we need to choose a hearing protector that can reduce the noise efficiently so that the worker is not underprotected, but we also need to be conscious of the possibility of what’s called overprotection, that would be providing too much of a good thing, for example. So maybe putting so much attenuation that it impedes the person from hearing an alarm or a warning signal.
Laurie Wells:
So just like the example you gave, Mark, of needing to hear that siren in order to take action, we want to be able to avoid that risk of overprotection so that people don’t miss the auditory cues that they need to do their job safely. So another factor in this equation is how well the person hears without the hearing protectors. So having normal hearing has an advantage of hearing better with a hearing protector when they’re in high noise, but people that already have some existing hearing loss may need to have some special considerations made when they’re choosing hearing protectors. So Bev, let me bring you in again here. What else is there to think about?
Bev Borst:
Laurie, there are several other factors to consider when selecting hearing protectors and they include the fit, the comfort, the compatibility, environment, and ease of use. So let’s look at each of those. So for fit, every ear is different and every head shape and size is different. So what’s really important to the overall performance is how well that hearing protector fits the individual. If it doesn’t fit, it may not provide enough attenuation or perhaps it won’t be comfortable and perhaps they won’t wear it correctly.
Bev Borst:
So comfort is our next factor. Comfort plays a big role in personal protective and equipment. People are generally not wanting or not willing to wear something that is uncomfortable.
Bev Borst:
Another important consideration is compatibility, compatibility with other head-worn PPE, such as safety glasses, hard hats, the straps of respirators. So everything needs to work together and work appropriately together.
Bev Borst:
Let’s look at the environment. The temperature of the work environment may be a factor in whether a person wants to wear earmuffs or earplugs. So when we’re looking at environment, we’re thinking of heat, cold, potential chemicals or dusts that are there. So that’s just a few.
Bev Borst:
The last is ease of use. This is last on my list is how easy is it to use? Not only is it easy to put it on and take it off, but is it easy to find it when you need it? Is it handy? Are those earplugs at the beginning of the factory door? Is it easy to replace and how easy is it to clean or maintain?
Mark Reggers:
Now you’ve covered a lot of information there about what to keep in mind when selecting hearing protectors from attenuation to audibility, comfort to fit. But can we apply some of these considerations to a couple of specific examples? So let’s say, would you recommend something different for someone in the construction industry versus say someone working in a plant at a chemical facility as an example?
Bev Borst:
Great idea, Mark. First, let’s think about the differences in those two work environments. Construction sites tend to have a lot of variability in the noise, different tools, workers coming and going, big equipment coming and going. And there may also be periods of relative quiet and suddenly it’s very noisy. Also compatibility with other PPE is important since construction workers are likely using hard hats and safety eyewear to list a few. Communication and audibility of alarms on a construction site are often critical.
Bev Borst:
Now let’s compare that to a plant setting and say a chemical facility that has continuous steady noise. The noise level doesn’t change much throughout the work shift and the worker could be fairly stationary. They also may have some head-worn PPE. So it’s important to think about compatibility. The noise environment in the chemical factory may be similar to someone in pharmaceutical or manufacturing.
Bev Borst:
With steady noise, passive hearing protection, so non electronic, either earmuffs or earplugs, they can be suitable as long as the amount of attenuation is able to reduce the noise sufficiently. So here, it is a matter of finding a model that is comfortable and easy to use for the worker. In my experience, if it’s cold, the workers tend to prefer earmuffs, but if it’s hot, they want to wear their earplugs. However, for construction sites where noise is changing a lot, it’s helpful to use an electronic hearing protector with level dependent capability. Remember that level dependent technology allows for the attenuation to change depending on the outside noise. When it’s quiet, the environmental sounds can pass right through the hearing protector using an external microphone to pick up low level sounds. The wearer can also adjust the volume of incoming sounds for their preferred listening level so they can continue to wear their hearing protector even when it’s quiet and they’re talking with someone nearby.
Laurie Wells:
Yeah, good point. I always like to say that it, you shouldn’t have to work to hear. You’re there at work to do a job and we want to protect people, but still allow them to be able to communicate. So there’s a lot of options when it comes to combining the protection and the ability to communicate through radios, through phones or other devices. So that could be a long topic, maybe topic for future podcast. What do you think, Mark?
Mark Reggers:
Absolutely. There’s so much in that world of things. So certainly one that we will delve into the future. I’m sure. I mean, firefighters, soldiers, construction workers, maintenance workers, that’s a lot of examples that just came to my mind about workers who need to hear while being protected. And even without that challenge of super high noise, we now have the complication of needing to be physically distanced and using respirators or face masks on top of it all. So there’s a lot of things there where we can delve into to help our listeners.
Laurie Wells:
Absolutely. And of course, 3M offers a whole range of protective communication solutions in both earmuffs and earplugs that can address some of those challenges. So Bev, thank you so much for joining us today and bringing some clarity to the different factors that are needed to consider when you’re selecting hearing protectors. Really appreciate your time and your attention to these important topics.
Bev Borst:
Thanks to both of you, Laurie and Mark, for this invitation today. It has been a pleasure.
Mark Reggers:
Well, I think that wraps up another exciting episode, Laurie.
Laurie Wells:
Well, keep your ears to the ground and listen for the news for the next episode. Thanks for listening, everyone. You can listen, subscribe to, and share this podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or most major podcasts apps and platforms. If you have any questions, topic suggestions, or you’d like some assistance in your workplace when it comes to the appropriate selection, use, and maintenance of PPE, you can get in contact with this podcast by contacting your local 3M office or visit our website at mmm.com.
Laurie Wells:
This year, we are celebrating the 50 year anniversary of the first NIOSH approved 3M filtering facepiece respirator and the 3M EAR classic earplug. To all of our customers who have trusted 3M brand PPE between then and now, thank you. Around the world we aim to help everyone get the job up done safely today, tomorrow, and in the future. Thanks for listening and have a safe day. Stay safe, Mark.
Mark Reggers:
Stay healthy, Laurie. Thanks, everyone.
Laurie Wells:
Hear you next time.