Lee Taylor, Wenaas, UK, explores the importance of specially designed PPE and work wear for the increasingly extreme environments faced by the oil and gas industry.

Attitudes towards offshore health and safety have come a long way in recent years. Heightened regulatory processes along with major advances in technology have meant that offshore workers are now better equipped to deal with the increasing demands of their roles in harsher climatic environments than ever before.

Health and safety has become a huge industry in its own right, with oil and gas industry bodies funding a multitude of research and development projects to provide the latest safety resources for their workforce. Included in this is the personal protective equipment and work wear sector, which has progressed in tandem with other strands of health and safety. As the offshore workforce evolves, so does the requirement for updated PPE and work wear. This is perfectly illustrated by the recent research undertaken by a university based in Aberdeen, which has assessed the implications of a physically growing offshore workforce upon a number of health and safety measures in general – not least the efficacy of PPE and work wear. The question is – have the work force’s habits changed sufficiently to ensure the right procedures are being followed?

Wenaas is a designer and manufacturer of work wear and PPE, and understands the importance of investment in research and development to continually optimise and improve work wear and PPE. It is on the basis of this commitment to R&D – and a ‘head-to-toe safety’ ethos – that Wenaas has been involved in research projects which aim to develop superior protection work wear, fit to cope with the extreme demands that the petroleum industry supplies.

This is important, because whilst the North Sea offshore industry holds a relatively positive track record for safety, E&P activity is moving into more hazardous, remote and ultimately more dangerous areas, as the search for reserves continues. This presents increasingly challenging environments within which work wear and PPE must perform, whilst highlighting the need for the emergence of innovative solutions and education on how to use those solutions to their best advantage.

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‘By engineering durable garments that literally fall apart into its component parts on command, the new process provides a unique means to recover pure fibre, reuse corporate clothing or up-cycle garments,’ states the consortium, believing that the patent-protected discovery will enable the textile sector to become more sustainable as well as profitable.

Wear2 may be incorporated into any apparel item, ranging from zippers, buttons, fastenings, linings and other ”contras” as it is ‘compatible with current manufacturing equipment’, the group points out. This means that currently contaminate recycled fibre can be easily removed prior to recycling. The ability to recover pure fibre is predicted to ‘open the door for the clothing industry to re-use material to supplement or replace virgin fibre in new garments’.

‘The lack of effective disassembly technologies and absence of design protocols for the handling of clothing at the end of its life have, until now, acted as barriers to a profitable, sustainable clothing operation,’ asserts the consortium. A breakthrough in this area was highly needed, it argues, urging that approximately 1 million tonnes of clothing is landfilled in the UK alone every year. ‘By adopting the wear2 process, over 60% of this total could potentially be re-processed.’

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Marks & Spencer has extended its ‘Shwopping’ campaign into the UK’s workplaces by launching a dedicated service for businesses to make it easy for employees to recycle and get money off vouchers.

Shwopping is M&S’s clothes recycling initiative launched in April this year – an idea that has already seen over two million items of used or unwanted pieces of clothing donated in M&S and Oxfam stores across the UK.

From next year, companies can make recycling clothes easy for their employees by placing Shwop Drops – clothes recycling boxes – in their offices for a one day eco drive.

M&S will deliver the Shwop Drops and provide marketing materials such as banners and notices.

Oxfam, M&S’ Shwopping partner, will collect the clothing and re-sell, re-use or recycle it – raising crucial funds for its worldwide poverty alleviation work.

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