A Breath of Fresh Air – Steve Badger on Respiratory Protection

Respirators are one of many controls to consider when addressing atmospheric hazards. Choosing the wrong respirator can have deadly consequences. The results could be immediately fatal or lead to a long-term debilitating disease or condition.  On this episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast, Steve Badger, CSP and Safety Management Consultant with MEMIC shares information about respiratory protection and what goes into choosing the right respirator. Peter Koch: [00:00:04] Hello, listeners, and welcome to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast, I'm your host, Peter Koch and today the topic is respiratory protection. The topic of respirators and air quality in the workplace has numerous paths in an atmosphere of misunderstanding can make it challenging for a business to navigate questions like How do I know which respirator to choose? Or isn't a paper mask a respirator to or why do they need a medical evaluation? Are all questions that have I have heard in the field, especially if I ask, why is that worker wearing or maybe not wearing a respirator? Add to this most airborne hazards do not pose an acute hazard, but can negatively affect you when exposed to it over a long period of time. So think about asbestos or say silica. These hazards can cause damage to your respiratory system and over time, and repeated exposures have proven to cause different cancers and other debilitating [00:01:00] conditions. Other airborne hazards like hydrogen sulfide, chlorine or carbon monoxide have an immediate or an acute life threatening effect. So regardless of how quickly a hazard will cause damage, the worker must be protected when the exposure is identified. So to help us clear the air around respiratory protection and returning to the podcast today is Stephen Badger, CSP, OHST and safety management consultant right here at MEMIC, Steve has a ton of experience with different industries and specializes in industrial hygiene and indoor air quality. You can check out his full bio at MEMIC.com. So, Steve, I wanted to welcome you back to the podcast. Thanks for being here, and I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you about respiratory protection today. Steve Badger: [00:01:48] Thank you, Peter. Glad to be here again. Peter Koch: [00:01:50] Awesome. So it's great to have you back. It's been a while since you've been on. It's been a number, well, a month or so at least. What interesting things have you been up to lately in the world of industrial hygiene? [00:02:00] Steve Badger: [00:02:01] Oh yes, very exciting stuff. You know, I've been doing a lot of silica monitoring, silica testing for respiratory protection purposes, doing lots of noise testing as well. People, you know, wanting to protect their hearing, which is also a very important subject. And that really, really has been the gamut. The last month or so, there's been a lot of focus on both of those subjects. Peter Koch: [00:02:25] That's cool. And I don't think people consider so much. You know, the silica standard has been out for OSHA now for quite a while, and it continues, I think, to surprise people that they have silica in the workplace and doing some of that atmospheric testing. And we'll talk about that specifically as we get into the respiratory protection program elements and how you determine what type of respirator is. But figuring that out is really important. The testing is really important to get people to understand where to target their efforts for that fairly dangerous substance that we have in the workplace. Steve Badger: [00:02:58] Yes, it is. It absolutely [00:03:00] can cause some long ranging health effects, breathing issues as well as it's been linked to cancer and some other debilitating health effects. So  yes, it absolutely is important to not just monitor, but also, you know, make sure that your employees are protected appropriately. Peter Koch: [00:03:17] Right on. So let's jump right in to talking about respirators. And I think the use or maybe even the misuse of respirators is more common than we think, and you probably would agree with me on that. What are some of the common respiratory protection mistakes that you see when you're driving around? Steve Badger: [00:03:36] Oh, certainly some of the most frequent ones that I see are the employer is trying to help their employee by giving them a respirator, something that they have found at one of the local stores. They purchased it, they've brought it in, you know, they give it to the person thinking that they're doing a really good thing, that they're helping protect this person. And in all actuality, depending on what the type of respirator is, [00:04:00] if the person's been fit tested properly, they've been medically cleared and so on. Some of these things we're going to talk about today. If these haven't gone on, this person could actually have some medical issues that occur because of wearing that. Or it may give that person a very false sense of security, that they're being protected when it may not be the proper respirator to protect them from that specific hazard. Peter Koch: [00:04:26] Yeah, really good points. I've seen that, too. I've also seen this just happened a little while ago. They were replacing a segment of bridge around my house, and after they've finished laying down the concrete or pouring the concrete and it cured, they were scoring the concrete. So they had a big demo saw out there and they were scoring the concrete. The guy who was operating the saw was encased or enclosed, almost in a cloud of silica dust, basically, or concrete dust. And the paper mask that he had was on top of his hard hat. So you could see it fairly [00:05:00] easily driving right past them. And. You know, you talk about a mistake like that. I think that's more of a mistake in training and getting that employee to maybe understand what the true hazards of the atmosphere that they're exposed to are. So both sides, you know, the employer, like you said, trying to do the right thing and give the employee the proper protection, but they're not really hitting the mark. And on the other side, you know, giving somebody maybe what would be the proper protection truly for that, but not educating the employee properly on what the hazards are and the true importance and how critical it would be for them to wear it in the workplace or in that exposure? Steve Badger: [00:05:40] Absolutely. You know, one of the other mistakes I see, you know, when driving around is, is that somebody one person or two people will be in respiratory protection and there's other people around them. And that's kind of the downfall of using respiratory protection as your first line of defense is [00:06:00] that anyone that's not wearing it is not going to be protected. And so that is another one of those areas that people have to be concerned with is that anyone not wearing it or if it fails or, you know, or if somebody leaves it on the top of their hard hat that it's not going to protect them the way that it would be actually removing that contaminant from the workplace. Peter Koch: [00:06:23] Yeah, that's a really great lead in actually to this next topic and you think about that individual could be a supervisor, could be someone visiting the job or another employee that has just been assigned to the job but hasn't done the training for respiratory protection, standing within the hazard and not having the same PPE. And I think when people do think about respiratory protection, they do think about respirators like that's the only thing that we have to protect ourselves from the airborne hazard, something that you wear that can protect you at the workplace. And even though we're going to talk about the respirators specifically, I think it's best that we start [00:07:00] someplace else. So continue that thought. Explain why personal protective equipment or PPE isn't the place to start and what process or how should we look at controlling and atmospheric hazard differently? Steve Badger: [00:07:14] The direction that we want to really hit on this is to determine, first of all, do we have an atmospheric hazard that needs to be our first step? And when we look at the respiratory protection standard, the very first line is that the idea? The objective here is to control those. So we need to know what they are before we can even start to control those. So when we go to control these things, one, the very first thing that we need to really be looking at is can we eliminate that hazard from the atmosphere now in the case of something airborne, you know, maybe like silica or something like that, maybe we have to look at, you know, can we keep this stuff from becoming airborne in the first place? [00:08:00] Can we eliminate that hazard? Really, the next step is, you know, typically in these hierarchy of controls that we talk about is, can we substitute it for something different? Well, you know, when it comes to airborne hazards, you know, if we're talking about a chemical, perhaps we can substitute that for something less hazardous and therefore we would not need to do anything further as far as protection goes. Our next step would be engineering controls where, you know, we may have this hazard in the air, but can we engineer it out? Can we, you know, pull the pull the contaminants out of the air think a lot about like welding and welding fumes when people are working with that, you know, we use local exhaust to try to keep that out of their breathing zone in the beginning so that it's not being drawn up through their breathing zone. So they're not getting that contamination in their lungs. So we do the local exhaust, we have general exhaust. [00:09:00] And then if that does not take care of the hazard as we would expect or reduce it to a level that's acceptable, then we look at administrative controls. That's where the training, the programs, the inspections, those types of things come in. And then last but not least, is the final resort, which is the personal protective equipment, the respirator itself Peter Koch: [00:09:26] And the hierarchy there, starting with elimination. Or if you back it up, like you said at the beginning, you have to know or believe that there's a hazard in the workplace and then determine what that hazard is. And you talked about that briefly. As you're doing silica testing and monitoring in the workplace, you have to test the atmosphere to determine whether or not there's a hazard there to begin with. And I think even more importantly, to determine how much is there, especially when you get into the chemical side of thing, there's the, you know, the permissible exposure limits [00:10:00] and different things. So there are. Are certain limits that we can be exposed to over time that are OK, not great, but they're OK, and those levels will dictate what we do next. So then can we eliminate it? And so give me an example, if we were going to eliminate an airborne hazard from the environment, what would an example be about how to eliminate an airborne hazard Steve Badger: [00:10:26] By eliminating it? Perhaps that we're going to use a certain type of process? Maybe we're using a very potent cleaner, something that's giving off a vapor that that certainly isn't good for us to be breathing in now. If we take and, maybe eliminate that from the workspace. Maybe, we're taking that in a different direction that is taking it away from people and where people are working. We've eliminated that hazard in the work environment. Maybe we take it outside or, you know, maybe it gets [00:11:00] piped differently or something, something along that line, we isolate it from the person. Peter Koch: [00:11:05] Sure, that's a great idea. Can you do the process in a different part of the area if you're exposing a lot of people to it? Can we do it outside? Can we do it in a different space? So in that case, you are only exposing a few people or the people that are immediately doing the process. So a great idea. Would doing something like in a wet method like for the control of silica or other dusts, would that be considered in an elimination? Would that be an engineering control? Steve Badger: [00:11:36] Well, that would really be an engineering control because at this point here, the hazard is still there. It is in the work environment. So we've done our part. We've tried to eliminate it as much as possible. Now we're looking at engineering and wet methods, especially with something like silica, asbestos, lead. Keeping that from becoming airborne becomes the primary objective at that point that [00:12:00] we're keeping it out of that person's breathing zone. So any kind of wet methods, whether it's a continuous flow water system or if something that's attached to the tool itself, you know, depending on the on the you know what you're doing and how you're doing it, they're certainly tools out there that will help us with that. Whether it's vacuuming, you know, keeping that dust from coming in the air that way or by watering, keeping it wet. Peter Koch: [00:12:25] It's great and a good differentiation there, where elimination removes the hazard from the workplace or from the immediate area where people are would be exposed to it while engineering the hazard still exists. It's still there. You're just trying to knock it down or to bring it to a level that is not hazardous or you're not exposing that particular person to so great, great differentiation there. So I think that's a good process to think about. So you have elimination, then substitution engineering and then the two parts that that come together, [00:13:00] but one before the other administration and then PPE. So if we've gone through the whole hierarchy and thought about it well, I can't eliminate it. I have done all I can to engineer the space in order to reduce the hazard. But the hazard is still there. Now I've determined that I need a respirator. So what is required for a company to have in place before they can put people into respirators once they've determined that a respirator is a functional way of managing the hazard? Steve Badger: [00:13:33] Now, the very first thing that they have to look at is having an actual respiratory protection program. This program as OSHA's states has to have certain elements within it. And you know, those elements include, you know, procedures for selecting the respirators in the workplace. This is obviously one of the most important parts of this because without knowing what types of respirators you need, you'd be shooting, you know, shooting in the dark as far [00:14:00] as guessing as to what you need to have. This has to include medical evaluations for employees. This step is absolutely critical. Absolutely. So important for the employee themselves because they have to be cleared to wear that respirator before they're even fit tested for it to make sure that they're not going to have any type of adverse conditions that may be exacerbated by that. Maybe something like asthma or some type of breathing issue that they have that could cause them to have a medical event because of wearing this respirator. So, you know, how are we going to clear these people to wear this? A third section is the fit testing procedures. How are we going to make sure that this respirator is going to be needed by this employee? You know, they come in different sizes and different shapes and different brands and that sort of thing. The procedures for proper use of respirators, when do we use it? When do we do not have to use it? When you know, if there's [00:15:00] an emergency, you know what situations are going to require us to be using these respirators? Procedures for cleaning and maintenance and taking care of these things, inspecting them, making sure that if it's a supplied air breathing type of respirator that we have you know the proper type of air, you know, the proper type of location that is coming from, that it's not being contaminated by something outside. Training of employees needs to be addressed in this program. You know, not just the training on, you know, what are the hazards in the workplace, but also training on how to properly don and doff, which is the proper terms for putting on and taking off your respirator. You know, all of those types of things, the proper inspection of them to make sure that all the parts and pieces are there and working the way that they are supposed to be. And then also, you know, procedures for the regularly evaluating the program, making sure that you're using, you know, [00:16:00] your best resources, that if there's new technology out there that you're implementing that. And so all of those things together are required by the employer have to be in writing so that the employees can be trained properly on it and that it can be evaluated and looked at on a regular basis. Peter Koch: [00:16:18] Great. And I think a key point there that you brought up at the end is that this is a required written program. So if you have an atmospheric hazard that needs to be controlled by personal protective equipment, that a written respiratory protection program must be in place at your company and I have all those components, you have to have to a way to be able to control or do your best to determine whether or not you can control it any other way or reduce the exposure amount than to have medical evaluations. Require those fit testing, training, care, maintenance and then finally, the program evaluation. All of those are critical parts and pieces and part of the OSHA, you said right at the beginning part [00:17:00] of the OSHA standard. Correct? Steve Badger: [00:17:01] Correct. Peter Koch: [00:17:02] Awesome. All right. I've got the hazard. I can't do anything else with it. I determined that I need to use some sort of respirator. I've pulled a respiratory protection program off the internet, and I've made it my own awesome. So now I'm all set and I'm going to do what a lot of folks will do. I'm going to Google respirators and what kind of respirator do I need for the hazard? And if you just Google respirators, the bots at Google return sixty one million results, so Google is not going to be your friend when you're trying to figure that part out. So what types of respiratory protection are out there from a respirator standpoint and what sets them apart? So how do I figure out which one that I need for a particular hazard that I have in the workplace? Steve Badger: [00:17:49] Now, that's a great question, and you're absolutely correct when you Google something and you get 61 million hits. It's certainly a very daunting thing. So when we're looking at respirators, [00:18:00] you know, you really let's break it down into some, you know, some maybe more handle-able. I'm going to make a word up there, but handle-able pieces here. First of all, there are really two types of respirators that we have to be concerned with. There's what's called an air purifying respirator. And then there's also atmosphere supplying respirators. Now, the first being the air purifying respirators is just like what it sounds is that this respirator takes the air that's already in the air and it filters it through some type of medium, whether it's through a half face mask. Like we talk about the N95 respirators that we've talked about over the last couple of years, you know, with COVID and with silica and with other things that they fit over your face and they act as the filter. You're not adding anything to the, you know, you're not adding any oxygen, you're not adding anything to it, you're just really filtering that air that's being drawn in through that filter by your lungs. You know, [00:19:00] when you create that negative pressure within it, you start to inhale, you're creating a negative pressure. It draws the air through and filters out certain particulates depending on what you're trying to filter out. And then you get that air into your lungs, then you exhale. Most of the respirators will have some type of exhalation valve, which opens and allows that air to escape. And as soon as that pressure stops, it closes in. The process starts again. So with that, I'll jump into a little bit into the atmosphere supplying ones. And it's just like, it sounds it. It's actually supplying you air. And it may be from tanks. It may be from the outside air, clean source of air, and that's being pumped into your respirator is being is being actually being forced into your respirators. So in this case, here you're adding beyond what's in the atmosphere itself. So those really are the two types that you really want to [00:20:00] be thinking about, depending on what your concentrations are. And when we talk about the air purifying respirators, those can be broken down into further classifications. Peter Koch: [00:20:12] Could I stop you for just a second? I want to clarify a point, so I think this is a good point. So you were putting these into manageable categories and you've got the air purifying and then the air supplied. So that's the first step that you're going to or the first choice point that you have to determine what type of respirator. So generally, when would you need to use an air purifying versus an air supplied respirator? Steve Badger: [00:20:38] Oh, great question. As far as using an air purifying respirator, you would want to use that or can use that in atmospheres that have plenty of oxygen that you have. You do not have an oxygen deficient atmosphere. You can use these filtering air purifying respirators in atmospheres up to a certain level of contamination, [00:21:00] depending on what that contamination is, what type of respiratory that you're wearing. Now, when we switch to the atmosphere supplying, we're talking typically situations that might be immediately dangerous to life and health. If you think about like firefighters wearing SCBA's or, you know, people that have to remain behind in a fire situation where you know, they may have to shut down critical machinery such as a boiler or something like that where we know the atmosphere is going to be hazardous, it could be immediately dangerous to their life. So we need to supply them with proper air to let them finish that process and then escape from that, that situation. Peter Koch: [00:21:40] It's a really good point, and I think it goes back to truly knowing what the hazard is, which is why the standard starts with understanding the hazard because it's not just the what, but the how much is really important as well, because you can get into a situation where you have a environment that's immediately dangerous to life and health in a confined [00:22:00] space or in an enclosed area, depending on the type of chemical that you're exposed to and the stratification that happens within that, that particular space, I might be fine if I'm working in the upper level, but it may have displaced all of the oxygen in the lower levels. So lots of different potentials down there. So understanding not just the what, but the how much can help you determine whether I need to go the air purifying or I need to move to the air supplied respirator. Great description. Thanks, Steve. So jump back in and talk more about you were going to talk about the different types of air purifying respirators. Steve Badger: [00:22:41] Sure. Yeah. And the very first thing I wanted to really point out here is that any respirators that we're going to use in the work environment. Really need to be NIOSH approved, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has to have an approval. We've been through, you know, the COVID situation and therefore a time. [00:23:00] There was some emergency use authorizations for some non approved ones. Those have since ended. So we really need to be focusing on making sure that you're using an appropriate respirator that has been NIOSH approved because if it has not been approved, we don't know how good it really is. We don't know if it's really meets the standards. So that's the very first thing I would like to point out. Second of all, there are different levels. There are what they refer to as N respirators, R respirators and P respirators. And essentially what it is that the N respirators, you know, they can be in different levels, but the N really stands for that. There's no oil in the air that you can use that type because there's no oils in the air. The R stands for that. That's oil present, but it may only be for one shift. And then the P means that there could be oil present, you know, at any given time. And you really must follow the manufacturer's [00:24:00] recommendations when it comes to this. Because, you know, certainly when you look at it, the variations between the P and the N, the P respirators are always going to be a little bit more expensive, but that may be exactly what you need to have. So that is that is something that people have to realize is that it's just not the cost, it's the type of respirator and the environment that you're going to be using that. And then within those, you know, you can have P one hundred, P ninety nine and N ninety five. And typically what that means it is telling you within that type of respirator, how much is it really filtering out if it's an N95 respirator, that means it is filtering out ninety five percent of all the particles that would be outside of your mask. And so I always like to clarify that because there's lots of these numbers and letters out there, and it can it can be very confusing. Peter Koch: [00:24:56] And those in particular are for particulates, correct? So the N95 [00:25:00] or the P 100s that you would have out there, there, that's the percentage of the particulate down to a particular size that the mask is rated to pull out of the atmosphere before it gets into your lungs. Steve Badger: [00:25:13] That is correct. And the other aspect of this is that when we start talking about, you know, tight fitting respirators, the elastomeric respirators are just like what they sound. They fit tightly against your face may have cartridges, and those cartridges will be different colors depending on how they filter out things or what they're supposed to filter out. I do caution people making sure that you have the right cartridges when you use those, because a P100 filter may look really great and wonderful. It filters out a lot of particulates, but it may not do very good about filtering out organic vapors or things that you know, come from paints or solvents or things like that. So you really have to know your colors. You know, you have to follow your training and making sure you're using the right respirator cartridge. Peter Koch: [00:25:59] Yeah. So [00:26:00] in that you have that filtering face piece, right, the paper mask looking thing, which would give you an N95 or a P100 rating or an R 99, and then you have the elastomeric or the tight fitting respirators, which will have a cartridge, which will have something or a cartridge, which might have a pre-filter that could be N95 or P100. Or it could have an actual particulate filter, which that's all it's going to do is filter out the respirators, but not so much the organic vapors or other chemicals that that you might need. So going back to understanding the what and the how much which is important for your selection for respirator. So, yeah, all right. We have the filtering face piece, the P 100s, the N95. You started talking a little bit more about the elastomeric respirators. You want to talk a little bit more about those and maybe some of the types and how you might choose the filtering face piece versus, say, a tight fitting respirator like the elastomeric ones. Steve Badger: [00:27:00] When [00:27:00] it when it comes to the respirators, you know, choosing which type that you're going to use, it really comes down to, you know, is this going to be something that you're going to be using every day? Is this going to be something that you're going to be using intermittently? And, you know, something like an N95 filtering face piece respirator are good for, you know, like a single use where you're going to go in and you're going to be doing some, maybe some work with silica or something like that and you use it. And when you come out and you and you decontaminate and you can just throw that away, you don't have to worry about cleaning it or taking care of it because the filter, the respirator itself is the filter, and you certainly don't want to be taking that home with you. You don't want to be reusing that. Now, the elastomeric, on the other hand, is the type of respirator that you can use multiple times. Yeah, you keep it clean. You keep the, you know, the pieces and the parts to it. You may end up changing those filters more frequently because one of the things with using filters that you have to be [00:28:00] very cautious of is that most of them do not have what we call an end of service life indicator. There's nothing to tell us when it goes bad. So we have to really rely on ourselves and our training to recognize when that end of life has come. And it may be that it has gotten wet, maybe that you've gotten sprayed in the face with some water or something like that while you've got this respirator on. That would be an indication that this filter, which is very, very fine, very thin filter could tear. Once it becomes ripped, once it becomes wet can rip in and lose its functionality. The other thing is that we want to be conscientious. We want to be thinking about, you know, how difficult is it for us to breathe through? As that burden becomes more on the filter. It's going to become harder for us to draw that ear through. We need to be able to recognize that and say, OK, you know what? It's time for us to change those filters. So those are two situations where you really want to be paying attention to that. So when we talk about the different types [00:29:00] of respirators, we got those filtering face pieces. We've got the half face negative pressure respirator, which is the elastomeric version of that filtering face piece. Those are probably the lowest type of respirator that we really want to be considering to wear in the workplace. When properly fit tested, they have an assigned protection factor of 10, meaning that for every 10 particles outside that that one might get through. Ok, so it's a good filter. It definitely does. It does its job, but it's not perfect. It's not 100 percent. It still will allow things to go through. And the caveat here is that these respirators do not have any assigned protection factor until they've been properly fit tested to the person that respirator itself. Just holding it up to your face does not mean anything. It's not going to protect you. We don't know that it's going to protect you the way that that it should be doing. When [00:30:00] we move up to the full face negative pressure respirators, that's the type you see where people will have a, you know, full face that covers your face, it'll have a shield in front of you typically has one or two respirator cartridges, that type of respirator when properly fit tested. Will give you a protection factor of 50. So now we're moving, you know, into a direction where, you know, very few particles are actually getting through into the respirator. So you were talking very, very minute amount of that are getting in there. It's also really good eye protection. If you're working with chemicals or working with particles, things that could get into your eyes, this can certainly help filter those out. And then we, as we move down the line, we get to what they call powered air purifying respirators. Those respirators that have a little motor with them that are forcing the ear in many people have seen these, you know, maybe in a medical [00:31:00] setting, maybe they've seen them in the workplace where, you know, people are evaluating something, it's forcing air in all the time and these can be tight fitting or they can be loose fitting. And depending on the type that you have, the protection factor can vary greatly. We moved down into the supply to air respirators. Those can be anything from working with remote tanks through a manifold or something that's pumping air in from a remote location. Those again can the depending on the type that you're using, the protection factor can vary greatly. It can be as little as 10, or it can be as much as a thousand, depending on the type of system that you have. And then we move into the highest level, which is the self-contained breathing apparatus SCBA and those in the pressure demand mode can be a protection factor of ten thousand. So we, as we move up in line, they become much more protective. Because [00:32:00] they're pushing year in and not allowing that stuff to be coming into your mask into your breathing zone. Peter Koch: [00:32:07] Let's take a quick break. Integrating workplace safety into your business is a key part of the long term success of any company. And like most components of success, there is no one size fits all solution. MEMIC is committed to partnering with employers across all industries for workplace safety, and we recognize the key to that partnership is understanding the unique demands of the industries that we ensure our safety experts bring experience from the industries that they serve. And this experience provides unique perspective through a critical eye when it comes to understanding the particular exposures and challenges of any industry from construction, retail and manufacturing to hospitality and health care. Our team of experts will work with policyholders to identify opportunities to improve safety. Interested in finding more about MEMIC? [00:33:00] Check us out at MEMIC.com. Or better yet, contact your local independent insurance agent for more information. If you're already insured by MEMIC, then check out our safety resources at MEMIC.com/WorkplaceSafety and sign up for access to our video lending library, our LMS platform or our Safety Director Resource Library. Now, let's get back to today's episode. Peter Koch: [00:33:28] Great, so again, going back to knowing the what and how much in the what, how dangerous is that particular piece and how much is are you exposed to that fit factor of for every 10 particles one will get in? That's OK. I guess if it's wood dust, then maybe it's pine and it doesn't have any allergens in it or it's not dangerous to you. But then if you get up to silica or you come into lead fumes or something else, that's [00:34:00] happening all of a sudden one particle in 10 and you're breathing that for a number of hours throughout your shift becomes a little more scary. So you really want to know what and how much are you going to be so that you can not only choose the proper type of respirator, but the proper type of cartridge that you might need for that particular hazard. So great explanation Steve, that helps quite a bit. So you talked a little bit about this, about the medical clearance. And so I've understood, I understand I have a hazard. I've got a written program that I've made my own. Now I know the type of respirator that I need, but I can't just hand the respirator to the guy who's going to be in there. There's a few more steps that need to happen, so before I can give it to the person to even be fit test with, what do they need to do first Steve Badger: [00:34:48] Before anyone can put on a respirator, even for fit testing process or procedures, we have to make sure that they are medically cleared and that starts with a medical [00:35:00] evaluation, meaning a questionnaire that can be found in Appendix C of the standard. By the way, that standard is 29 CFR 1910.134. If you look at the Appendix C, there is a questionnaire that the employees have to fill out and that that questionnaire has to be evaluated by an evaluator that can make the decision on whether or not, you know, can this person safely wear a respirator or do we need more information? And a lot of times, even though you can find these online, one company in particular that does these online for companies is 3M. You can go and you can do these. They'll evaluate them for you and then tell you whether or not you need to go to that next level. They may look at this and you know, there might be some red flags that come up because of past exposures. Or maybe that they have some type of medical issue with asthma or something that [00:36:00] may require them to be seen by something a little further up the line. Peter Koch: [00:36:03] So why? Why is it important, though? So I mean, I think I understand somewhat, but maybe elaborate on that. Why? Why even have the medical clearance? I mean, so what's the big deal if I've got some pulmonary issue before? I've got some respiratory issues before, maybe even I've smoked before. I know those are some questions that are on the evaluation. Why is it important to evaluate that even through the questionnaire before you move on to the next step? Steve Badger: [00:36:29] Certainly the most important part of this really is that the person that when you put that respirator on, the very first thing you're going to notice is there is some more force that's required to be able to draw in the amount of ear that you want. You know, whether it's a, you know, air filtering respirator, air purifying type of respirator, you need to make sure that you're going to be able to breathe properly so that when you go to take that breath that you're not, you know, putting adverse effects on your heart, your lungs, [00:37:00] circulatory system that could cause you to have some type of medical event while wearing that. And that is a serious effect because it does happen. You can read about it frequently where people have put these things on, then they're not used to them. Maybe they're even claustrophobic and that just that action of putting that on can cause that, that to happen. So it's absolutely critical, something that OSHA absolutely is going to ask one of the very first questions. Has this person been medically cleared to wear this respirator? And so the very least that you're going to see is this questionnaire that's going to ask all kinds of questions about your past. You're smoking your, you know, to evaluate, are you a good candidate? What are you going to be using this respirator for those types of things? And then they may recommend that you have a an actual physical exam to make sure that you're physically capable of wearing it and to go along with that, depending [00:38:00] on what the contaminant is, whether it's asbestos or lead or cadmium, there may be requirements within those individual standards that require you to have a physical evaluation as well. So it may not be directly involved with the actual respirator use, but it could have to do with the standard of the contaminant. So it is important to make sure that your employees, if you're an employer, that they're going through this process. And if you're an employee, make sure that you go through this process is extremely important for both of you. Peter Koch: [00:38:33] Right. I think that's a really important point to make. And if you're listening out there and you're a business owner or if you're a safety person, or even if you're the person that's going to wear one of the respirators, if you're not breathing right, you're certainly not going to last very long in the workplace or in this world. So putting something on that's going to change how you breathe is a big deal. And if you've got underlying medical conditions that could exasperate that, it's important for us [00:39:00] to identify those things and make sure that if you're wearing it, you're not being put in a situation where it could make a condition worse or put you at risk of making a mistake that could get you injured in another way within the workplace. You had mentioned being claustrophobic. You know, if you put on a full face respirator, it cuts down some of your vision. Or even if you're in a positive pressure respirator, a hood based respirator, it really does feel very claustrophobic. And if that's changing your mentation, even if it's not changing how you breathe, it may be changing how you make decisions out there. So it could very well be an issue for you going forward or making critical decisions while you are working. So good point. Medical clearance is a is important part. People don't understand the importance of it, so they just kind of gloss it over and then they move to kind of the next step. So if someone's been medically cleared for it, then I now I can give them a respirator, but they still can't just take it and go [00:40:00] off into the workplace. You talked about fit testing before, so take us through the steps around testing and why it's important and the different types. Steve Badger: [00:40:07] Sure. Before I leave the medical clearance, one other thing that I want to remind people of is that this is not a one and done thing. People have to be reevaluated at least yearly for these. Now with COVID, there's been some, you know, extension of that. But for most of us outside of health care, we really need to be checked yearly to make sure that we are still capable of wearing that. That's a critical point because, you know, as we get older or maybe we've developed other issues as time has gone along, we need to make sure that we're that we're accounting for those to make sure that we're not going to be adversely affected. Peter Koch: [00:40:50] Great point. So definitely you have to have that medical evaluation every year. Steve Badger: [00:40:55] So yeah, moving along to the fit testing here, really, there's two types of fit testing [00:41:00] that we have to be concerned with. One is called a qualitative fit test, and the second is a quantitative test. The qualitative test is really only used for the half face negative pressure respirators. Those you know, N95 respirators as long as they, you know, they're for the proper type are the only ones that we're going to be using these for because it is a qualitative test, as it says it is, it is designed to test a person's ability to detect whether or not there has been a breakthrough on that respirator. So there are certain challenge agents that are used for that one of them happens to be if we're using particulates is irritant smoke. Some people have heard of that. It's or maybe you've seen people fit tested with it. It's just this nasty smoke that they put in front of your face and it causes you to cough, [00:42:00] you know, ninety nine percent of all people that take a breath of that start coughing immediately. It is very, very offensive and people start coughing so they know that they're sensitized to it, so that if they put this negative pressure half face respirator on and we're spraying this around them, we are going to know as well as they are going to know that whether or not there's any breakthrough, whether or not it's fitting properly. Now some of the other types, there's one called Bittrex, which I equate with salt and vinegar potato chips. It's got that taste to it, that acetic acid taste you test. You have to again test people, make sure that they're, that they are sensitive to it. But the problem is, you know, with using something like Bittrex is that the person can be tasting it and tell you  they're not. There is no way to positively know that they're telling you the truth. They may want to just get through this fit test. They may want to just get it done and get it over with get onto the next thing that they've got to do. [00:43:00] It's not that it's bad, it's just you just want to be as an employee you want to be honest. If you're tasting it, you're tasting it. You know, there's breakthrough. You do not want to play with this, you know, you don't want to, it's your health, you know, type of thing. And a third one is saccharin. They do use this saccharin type stuff. It's a very sweet tasting stuff. Again, you test this person's sensitivity to it ahead of time. My problem with. That is, once I have that taste in my mouth, I can't get it out. It takes forever to get that taste out of my mouth. So, when I'm being fit tested, I'm not sure if I'm really still tasting it from before or am I getting some breakthrough. So, you know, they both have their pros and cons. They're not certainly not as offensive as the urchin smoke, but I hate to word these cheap, but you can. You can cheat with those things if you're using that respirator for vapors purposes only. There is another test called another substance called isoamyl acetate, which more commonly [00:44:00] known as banana oil, because that's exactly what it smells like can be used as a challenge agent. I typically don't like it only because not only does the person being tested have to wear the respirator, but so does the person doing the test as well, because it has a very strong odor to it and a very strong narcotic effect. If you breathe too much of it and it can, it can really be very detrimental to yourself as the tester or anyone else in the room, anywhere else in the building because it will flow along with the air. So certainly something I'd recommend, but it is certainly out there. So those are the challenge agents. And once you establish that a person is aware that they can taste it, they can smell it off. Whatever it is, then you have to run them through a series of exercises through a series of tests to make sure that that respirator is going to stay properly on their face while they are doing their everyday activities, including [00:45:00] talking. So part of this is called the rainbow passage. It was a it was a paragraph created back in the 1950s for the Air Force to mimic different movements with your face that you might do while you're talking and explaining things to people. Steve Badger: [00:45:15] And so you have to read through this rainbow passage, you have to do some turning your head from side to side things like that to make sure that that respirator is going to stay where it is supposed to be and not break that seal as you're using it. That, in essence, is that qualitative test, the quantitative test, on the other hand, it's a lot more numerical, just like it sounds. It's actually done by a device most typically called a port account. There are some other ones out there, but port account is the most common one. And typically, you know, in essence, simply what it is that it's monitoring the fibers and the particles outside your mask and also the fibers and particles inside your mask. And it gives you a fit factor. It gives you a number [00:46:00] while doing these tests that you're doing the turning your head from side to side and up and down and back and forth reading the rainbow passage. And it gives you these fit factor numbers and for a quantitative test, you have to have a minimum of a 500 fit factor for it to be considered a successful test. So every respirator beyond that half face respirator needs to be fit tested in that manner with a quantitative test. Peter Koch: [00:46:28] So you can still do the quantitative test with the half face respirators, but it's required to do with the full face or the air supplied respirators, correct? Steve Badger: [00:46:39] That is correct. The only one that is not required for is the loose fitting PAPRs, because there's no way to make sure that the that the person is, you know, it's not enclosed, totally enclosed. So that's why those types of respirators cannot, cannot be fit tested that way. Peter Koch: [00:46:57] Fantastic. And I know from having administrative both [00:47:00] tests myself and having had both tests done or doing both tests myself for being fit for a respirator while I was in the in the workplace. Qualitative, I think you hit the nail on the head. It can be something that gets, I guess you could say, spoofed by the employee. The quantitative actually provides some really good information to you. I don't know. And when we've both done it, I don't know if I'm sure you do this to. The person can see the difference in the particulates inside the mask versus what's outside the mask, and they can see the changes when they're doing those different exercises so they can see what's happening to the seal on that respirator while they're doing different things. And that just that education, I think for that individual is can be priceless because prior to them seeing that, they just think it's a piece of PPE and I'm going to be protected from it just because it's a piece of PPE. But it goes back to how you use it, how you understand its use [00:48:00] and how you understand the hazard, which really does make that piece of PPE either work or not work so interesting, Steve Badger: [00:48:09] Right in this poor account will really show the importance of being clean shaven as well for the respirators. Because when you think about, you know, a human hair that might be protruding out from underneath the seal of that respirator, a human hair is about one hundred and fifty times thicker. Then an asbestos fiber, for instance. And so wherever that fiber, wherever that hair is sticking out, fibers can get through. And so by seeing those numbers and seeing that, oh wait, I'm not clean shaven, it's been a couple of days since I've shaved. You can see where the air leakage is happening because of that and that they really do need to be clean shaven at all times because the expectation is when you're fit testing, yes, you're clean shaven. But once you get out on the field, maybe you skip a day or two, you know, with three or four. And all of a sudden you've got, you know, these here [00:49:00] that are sticking out wherever those are sticking out, it's letting those contaminants in. So it's really important to understand that. Peter Koch: [00:49:07] Yeah, very true. Your beard is only a food filter. It's not an air filter, right? Steve Badger: [00:49:11] Correct. Peter Koch: [00:49:13] So thinking about frequency, you talked about that a medical evaluation has to happen every year. How often does someone need to be fit tested? Steve Badger: [00:49:22] Yeah. The fit testing also is on a yearly basis, although there are some standards out there that do require every six months, depending on what you're working with, because they want to be sure that that fit is maintaining and you may be required to be fit tested more frequently. There are some things within the standard that if you gain or lose more than 20 pounds, if you've had some type of dental surgery or facial surgery, something that may affect that fit on your face, you certainly want to get another test. Peter Koch: [00:49:55] Yeah, that's a good point. And going back to that conversation about the types of respirators [00:50:00] every company has their own way of, of molding the respirator. So the last of the respirator, how it's created, and not every person will fit into a particular brand of respirator based on its kind of like a shoe, you know, every you might fit into a size eight shoe for this company, but you won't fit it into a size eight shoe for that company, or it won't fit the same so different sizes of respirator based on your facial structure. And then sometimes even different brands of respirator, depending on your facial structure, would need to be chosen or tried to see if you will actually pass the fit test. Is that correct? That sound right? Steve Badger: [00:50:39] That does sounds exactly right because, you know, and I have found this in countless times when doing these fit tests, whether it's qualitative or quantitative, is that I will I will get to there. I will start doing a fit test in. The person obviously has too big of a mask. You know, we're looking at the seal and hairs, you know, not the issue. It's just not [00:51:00] sealing to the person's face. So we have to go down in size or we have to go to a totally different brand. You know, there are three M's this north, there's Scott. There's a whole bunch of different brands out there and that they do all fit a little bit differently. And you know, one of the things going along with that is that the care of these respirators is you go through time. You want to be taking really good care of these. You want to be keeping them clean. You want to keeping them dry. You want to keep them out of the sun and out of the heat as much as possible. Because we, especially with the elastomeric ones they tend to dry out. They'll tend to, you know, like keep anything in the back window of your car in the summertime gets very, very hot and it will start melting and become really unwieldy, and it may not form to your face any longer. So care of these things are absolutely critical, especially if you're only going every six months to a year. Without that fit test, you want to be sure that it's fitting [00:52:00] you properly. So in between times, one of the things that we that we do is every time you put this respirator on, you want to be doing what we call fit checks. We want to do a positive and negative fit check, which a positive fit check would be. Where you cover the exhalation valve, you blow on that, you know, semi forcefully. You don't want to, you know, blow to hard, but you want to fill that mask up in that seal wants to hold. If you if that seal will hold for 15 to 20 seconds, that means that that check is doing OK. Then you want to try the other, you know, depending on if you've got cartridges or, you know, some way to cover the filtering piece of that and then you inhale and it should collapse the respirator and the seal should hold for 15 to 20 seconds, and that will indicate that the negative fit check is working the way that it's supposed to. That's a good rule of thumb to do every single time you put that respirator on. Peter Koch: [00:52:55] Yeah, and so I think it's part of it required with the standard as well. So you're supposed to field fit [00:53:00] or fit check once you put it on to determine whether or not the seal is still functional because again, you know, lots of stuff could happen. It could be old. It could have lost its some of its elastomer properties, or it could have been damaged. And you don't know. And there's other pieces inside the respirator that could have been damaged that would allow air to come in or not be filtered correctly. There's there is one way valves, little flaps inside the respirators that have to be looked at and maintained and made sure that they're in good shape in order for that respirator to work properly. So if we think about the care and the maintenance, you know, in the field and someone's using the respirator, what are some of the mistakes people make when they finish with the respirator? Like what? What are they doing that's not helping them when they want to go put it back on again? Steve Badger: [00:53:55] Yeah, there's a there's a few things that that don't help them. First of all, you know, they take it off, [00:54:00] they hang it up, you know, they'll hang it on a nail somewhere. That really is not helping that respirator any. It needs to be cleaned and needs to be taken care of just like any other piece of equipment. And, you know, and when we clean these things, we want to be very careful that we're, you know, we can use a little bit of disinfectant, but we don't want to use too much because it will tend to dry these things out greatly. And again, that elastomeric ability of that thing to be able to move and fit with our face gets greatly affected the more it dries out. And so we want to make sure that we, you know, use no more than a 10 percent bleach solution. But I would make sure that you clean it every single time. Make sure that it's dry, make sure it's sealed in a Ziploc bag, something that keeps the dust and the contaminants off from it in between times because you may not use it every day. But even if you do, you want to make sure that that thing is in clean and a good condition. The next time that you go to put that thing on the other problem [00:55:00] with hanging these things up, the straps that hold the respirator to your head will tend to stretch or they could get damaged and then break. You know, there's lots of bad things that can happen from that. So hanging those things up absolutely not the way to go. You want to treat that. As you know, as it is, it's a device that is protecting your life. Peter Koch: [00:55:24] Yeah. What about the practice of removing the canisters from the mask and sealing the mask separate from the canister when you put it away? Is that a good rule of thumb or required or? I've heard that spoken about at different companies. Steve Badger: [00:55:38] Yeah, it really depends on a couple of factors one, you know? And again, this comes down to the company policy that part of the program where we, you know, if you're using this, maybe you're stepping into a place, you're looking at something coming right back out. That's one of those situations where you might reseal those. You might put tape over those [00:56:00] cartridges and reuse them. You know, the best practices, honestly, is that they get removed every time because we don't know, you know, if this can take a certain burden, it can take a certain load. How much have we given that, you know, buy that few minutes that we were in that we just don't know. And so, you know, it's always better to err on the side of caution when you when dealing with respiratory protection. So, you know, taking those off, disposing of them properly, you know, not just leaving them, laying around for someone else to grab or use because they can't find other ones, make sure those get disposed of properly. And as Peter said, you know, perhaps, you know, storing those separately, you know, from your respirator is certainly a best practice. Peter Koch: [00:56:45] Great. So you know, you take it off, put it away or clean it really well outside inside. Seal it up, protect it from damage. There's a lot to the standard. There's a lot to doing this. So you know, you can't just hand the respirator to an employee and expect them [00:57:00] to have the knowledge to use it correctly. So this goes to the training part. What training is the employer required to provide to the employee for respirator protection or respirator use and respiratory protection? Steve Badger: [00:57:16] The very first training that is required by the OSHA standard is that they are trained in the hazards and the recognition of the contaminants that are that they are being protected from. You know, what are the you know, what does this smell like, look like, taste like, you know, whatever, so that they can recognize that if they're being exposed to it, that's the very first training that they have to have. Second of all, they have to have the training in the respiratory protection program, which is all of those pieces that we talked about earlier and knowing how to properly put on a respirator. It was one of my favorite things to do when doing respiratory training for a group for the very first time is handing them a respirator and telling them, OK, go ahead and put it on, [00:58:00] and you'll be amazed at how many different ways a respirator can be put on improperly. And so, you know, it's always a good way to start by showing people how many different ways this can go wrong, but there is one right way of doing it. So we want to make sure that they understand that we want to make sure that they know how to inspect it, to look for those pieces and parts, those inhalation valves, those exhalation valves, those all of those little pieces. Those that are inside that are required to be there to make sure that that respirator is functioning the way that it's supposed to be. We want to make sure that they are trained in how to the proper care of it, proper storage, maintenance, if something does need to be fixed or replaced. You know, how are we going to do that? Do we have one person that does that? We have to report it. You know, how does that whole thing work has to be put into that program so people have to be trained on that as well? Peter Koch: [00:58:53] Awesome. And then I guess finally around the training part, does the standard require that there is a program administrator for respiratory [00:59:00] protection? Steve Badger: [00:59:01] Yes, there has to be a program administrator listed in the program at the very front of the program. And that program administrator is the ultimate authority when it comes to that program. That's who has the final say in what's in there. That administrator has to go through that program at least annually to make sure that it is up to date, that everything that's within it is still current, that we're still doing the same things. Or if there are things that maybe we're doing differently, that those are addressed in that program. Peter Koch: [00:59:33] Perfect. There's a lot of moving parts to this piece. And well, I guess before we come right to the end of this, is there anything that our listeners should know that I haven't asked about yet for respiratory protection, Steve? Steve Badger: [00:59:49] Well, I don't think so, I think the only other issue that I would really want to talk a little bit about is in areas where respiratory protection is not required [01:00:00] and an employee wants to bring in their own respirator and wear that. We really have to be careful as an employer about that. We can't just say, OK, you know what? We're going to close our eyes and then in and let that happen. We really have to make sure that the employer provides the employee with Appendix D of the standard, which requires, you know, which states that you know, it's a voluntary use only you can wear your own respirator, that sort of thing. But you may still have to implement parts of the respiratory protection program to make sure that those people are still going to be properly protected and that they are medically cleared to wear them. Because it is your workplace, you're allowing them to wear them. You have to be sure that they are medically cleared to wear them. The only exclusion to that is if it is a dust mask, one of those like an N ninety five type respirator [01:01:00] that is used just for that purpose, then that does get excluded from having to do the all of the bells and whistles. But if they're wearing any type of elastomeric respirator, they do have to make sure that they are medically cleared and that they are following the company policy on those. Peter Koch: [01:01:21] So I just want to clarify that. So if someone voluntarily brings in a paper mask, a filtering face piece that maybe it's an N95. So not just the dust masks, the single banded dust mask without a rating on it, that's a whole other category and doesn't fit into the respirator standard at all. Steve Badger: [01:01:38] Correct Peter Koch: [01:01:21] So if it's the N95 filtering face piece paper mask, the employer is not required to do medical evaluations with them. Is that correct? Steve Badger: [01:01:51] That is correct. That is the exception. Anything beyond that, like those elastomeric ones they do have to go through all the bells and whistles to [01:02:00] make sure that because it is their workplace. Peter Koch: [01:02:03] So if they're wearing voluntarily wearing an elastomeric tight fitting respirator, then they have to be medically evaluated and still fit tested for use. But if it's a filtering face piece, a paper mask, then they just need Appendix D. So that they understand the risks and hazards of wearing a respirator. Steve Badger: [01:02:25] Correct. Peter Koch: [01:02:26] Thanks. So we're right at the end of the podcast here. So if someone had more questions about respiratory protection and we're looking for more information and they didn't want to just do the Google thing, where could they go to find out more information about respiratory protection? Steve Badger: [01:02:42] Well, I would certainly hope that they would approach us. Our lost control consultants are certainly well aware of the standards and you know, I can refer people to standards all day. But you know, if you're not sure of the context, it can be very daunting to take a look at. So I would certainly recommend, [01:03:00] you know, going or coming to us, you know, asking those questions, you know, reaching out, asking an expert. I would also, you know, want to, you know, if you've got a company that has a safety director already. That would be a good resource. And also, if you are using resources, using respiratory protection, already taking a look at, you know, say, for instance, 3M and their website and their different types of respirators that they have available and those sorts of things because they do have a lot of really good information on respirators themselves. Peter Koch: [01:03:34] Fantastic. So the manufacturers for the respirators, whether it's 3M or North or Scott or a number of them out there certainly have a lot of respirators and OSHA has a good resource page for the respiratory protection standard itself. Is that is that correct? Steve Badger: [01:03:49] Yep, they do. They absolutely have some, some really good resources. They have some nice handouts that help explain some of that information there. But again, it really is going to come [01:04:00] back to, you know, having somebody that really is an expert to get you to step one of the process, which is finding out, do we have an air contaminant and what can we do about it before we get there? Peter Koch: [01:04:13] Yeah, that's a really great point, Steve. And I think it's a point or a step that a lot of people miss. They move right to. We've got to have a program, but you might not know what you need the program for yet. So that step of evaluating the hazard, trying to get some air sampling done, possibly to determine the what and the how much can give you a lot of great direction and that's not easy to do, so certainly reach out to us. There's other companies out there that will do air sampling. I know a lot of the states here in Maine Safety Works, which is an educational support arm of OSHA here in Maine. They will provide some help and other states have similar programs that you could reach out to for them too. If you've got some questions about atmospheric hazards and what you might need to do [01:05:00] to reduce the hazard or eliminate the hazard. Fantastic. Peter Koch: [01:05:05] Thanks, Steve. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your expertise with us. There's we really just kind of scratched the surface. The respiratory protection standard or just respiratory protection in itself has a lot of moving parts and there's a lot of things and it can get pretty complicated. I think that you helped provide a fairly clear path through some of the clouds today, but there's certainly more that we could talk on, I'm sure. Steve Badger: [01:05:30] Yeah, there certainly is. And you know, and this is one of the reasons why it's always in OSHA's top 10's number of citations that they give out every year because it is very complicated even for people that are trying to do the right thing and follow the follow the rules. It can still be very daunting, and you only have to miss one step to be in violation. So. So absolutely. Peter Koch: [01:05:50] Yeah, for sure. Well, perfect. That about wraps up this week's Safety Experts podcast, and thanks for sharing your expertise with myself and all of our listeners out there, Steve. Steve Badger: [01:06:00] You're [01:06:00] welcome. Thank you. Peter Koch: [01:06:01] Awesome. So to all of our listeners out there, thank you very much today on the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast. We've been speaking about respiratory protection with Steve Badger, safety management consultant here at MEMIC. The MEMIC Safety Experts podcast is produced by Rod Stanley and written, hosted and co-produced by myself, Peter Koch. If you have any questions about respiratory protection, send our team of safety experts an email right through our website at MEMIC.com And look for workplace safety and our safety experts. If you'd like to hear more about a particular subject or you have an idea for a safety related topic for the podcast. Email me at [email protected]. Also, check out our show notes at MEMIC.com/podcast, where you can find additional resources, links to other podcasts with Steve, as well as our entire podcast archive. And while you're there, sign up for our safety net blog so you never miss any of our articles or safety news updates, and [01:07:00] if you haven't done so already, I'd really appreciate it. If you would subscribe to the podcast and then take a minute or two to review us on Spotify, iTunes, SoundCloud or whichever podcast service that you found us on. And if you've already done that, thank you because it really helps us spread the word. Please consider sharing this show with a business associate friend or a family member who you think will get something out of it. And as always, thank you for the continued support and until next time, this is Peter Koch reminding you that listening to the MEMICs Safety Experts podcast is good, but using what you learned here is even better.