Have you ever encountered a situation when on a summer day or at noon in winter the sunlight is so bright that you want to squint? Glare can be so intense that it feels like sparks appear in your eyes. On holiday this situation does not cause much discomfort, but when performing work or driving a vehicle it can pose a separate hazard that may lead to injury.
In everyday life we often use tinted sunglasses. But what should you do if you are at your workplace at that time?
Let’s talk about the hazard of increased brightness or glare from snow or surfaces, which employers may identify in workplaces.
Under what conditions can such risks arise?
- when working on open unshaded sites
- when working near mirrored or reflective surfaces
- when driving a vehicle across snowy fields
There are other conditions when eye protection from dazzling brightness may be required.
The presence of such a hazard is reflected in Order No. 767n of the Ministry of Labour dated October 29, 2021 (hereinafter — Order No. 767n), but the concept “glare-protective glasses” is not fully defined, and employers have many questions:
- What is dazzling brightness?
- How to protect an employee from dazzling brightness?
- Should this protective property be mentioned in the conformity documentation?
What is “dazzling brightness”?
The term «Personal eye protection against dazzling brightness and ultraviolet radiation» appears in clause 12.2 of Annex No.2 to Order No. 767n. This annex includes PPE that the employer may incorporate into internal Norms developed in the context of the transition to Unified Typical Norms (ETN).
Such hazards include increased (dazzling) brightness of light in the work area. It can lead to damage to workers’ eyes (photophthalmia/photokeratitis). Indirect risks include employee disorientation during brief blinding by bright light.
It should be noted that sources of increased brightness, besides the sun, can be artificial lighting, glare from surfaces, and heated surfaces.
How to protect a worker from increased brightness?
For increased brightness, ETN prescribes the mandatory issuance of protective open safety glasses with tinted lenses. Tinted lenses include gray, light-gray, brown, light-brown, mirrored and other sun filters. The glasses you choose should provide ultraviolet protection of at least UV380.
Attention! Glasses with green lenses are intended for eye protection during gas welding operations and should not be used to protect against increased brightness.
When selecting glasses for protection against increased brightness, consider the lens color properties and the degree of tint. Dark gray filters are the classic option for protection from bright illumination. Brown filters complement the basic functionality of gray lenses: they do not distort color transmission, have a high light-transmittance coefficient and allow recognition of signal lights. Lightened or intermediate shades of filters (for example, light-gray) perform better in variable lighting conditions, are comfortable for the eyes under diffuse radiation, and can be used together with driver face and eye monitoring systems.
Should this protective property be mentioned in the certificate?
The greatest number of questions concerns documentary confirmation of the protective property in conformity documents. How can one prove that the selected colored-lens glasses will provide protection from dazzling brightness?
At present, “increased brightness” and “glasses with protection against dazzling brightness” appear only in Order No. 767n. Standards for eye PPE do not contain requirements or methods for measuring eye protection against increased brightness. Accordingly, adding protective properties against dazzling brightness to a declaration of conformity is not possible. When selecting protective glasses against dazzling brightness, you should rely on the lens tint and color. If the lens is tinted, it means it protects against increased brightness.
Also remember to verify confirmed protection against ultraviolet radiation.
A similar issue with legal justification applies to glasses intended to enhance contrast. They are mentioned in clause 12.3. Glasses with contrast lenses (yellow, amber, light-yellow, etc.) also lack requirements and test methods. Their protective properties are determined only by the lens color. However, contrast glasses do not raise as many questions as glasses for dazzling brightness—most likely because the market is accustomed to the terminology “contrast” glasses, while “dazzling brightness” is still a new term.
ATTENTION! Sunglasses used in everyday life and for leisure should not be used at the workplace, as such glasses may not meet safety criteria for physical-mechanical impacts. In particular, the lenses of such glasses may be made of glass and can shatter upon impact. Shards can injure the eyes or the skin around the eyes.
To summarize:
- Increased (dazzling) brightness — a harmful production factor mentioned in Annex No.2 to Order No. 767n, which can cause damage to workers’ eyes (photophthalmia/photokeratitis).
- To protect against increased (dazzling) brightness, protective open safety glasses with tinted lenses are used. Such lenses include gray, light-gray, brown, light-brown, mirrored and others.
- Protection from increased (dazzling) brightness is not specified in conformity documents, since these protective properties are not defined in standards (GOST) and testing methods. The basis for selecting glasses will be the lens color only.