OSHA Regulations for Respiratory Protection

Using the proper respiratory protection equipment is mandatory for jobs including everything ranging from confined space entries and abandoned mines to something as simple as operating a paint sprayer. The occupational Safety and Health Administration regulates respiratory protection in all the fields to make sure that all the requirements for employee safety are being met.

The main goal of OSHA in regulating the use of respirators is to prevent contamination occurring due to faulty equipments or improper use by some operator. It also works towards ensuring that respirators are made available and used wherever they are needed.

OSHA requires all employers to provide respirator equipments to employees wherever there are health risks present at the work site that demand the use of respiratory equipments. The equipments being provided to the employees should function properly and be free from any kind of damage.

Apart from that, the employer should also carry out regular inspections for monitoring the respiratory equipments. If, during inspection, a fault is found in a respirator, it is the employer's responsibility to repair the equipment. The employer also has the option of training the employees on how to perform proper maintenance on their respective respirators.

When filtering toxic atmospheres, the respirators have their own limit. These limits are rated as the device's maximum use concentration or MUC. Every respirator has its own MUC. For every respirator, the MUC denotes the maximum atmospheric concentration of the hazardous material from which the employee can be shielded while using the respirator. If the MUC rating exceeds for a certain respirator, it can cause contamination and, sometimes, even serious injury.

A written plan should be developed by the employer at work sites where the use of respirator is mandatory. This plan should detail the extent of the usage of a respirator and the aspects of its training and maintenance. This written documentation has to also include a detailed description of how the repairs are supposed to be carried out and if another employee is going to be appointed and trained to perform the maintenance of these respirators. The other provisions include all the medical evaluations of the employees on the use of respirators and the fit testing procedures that have to be carried out to make sure that they fit properly on every employee.

All the respiratory hazards and health risks are supposed to be predetermined by the employer, as per the OSHA regulations

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