Having your toes crushed or your feet damaged while working is something that no one would ever want. Let it be slippery surfaces, you working in a place where there are loads of hazards around you, heavy weighed objects or whatnot; such sites are labelled as hazardous and require you to be geared safely to keep yourself and the environment safe.
I thought to bring you the top 5 products that I had reviewed for both safety and comfort. In this exhaustive list, I will be covering all the benefits, pros and cons of each product that I have reviewed and recommend you the best product that would fit your pocket and budget.
What exactly are Safety Shoes?
Part of the Personal Professional Equipment (most commonly referred to as the PPE Gear), safety shoes play a vital role in protecting one from foot injuries from
- Places surrounded by heavy or falling objects
- Piercing objects
- Rotary machines
- Pinching objects
- Hot surfaces
- loops of rope under tension
- area with splinters
- electricity and or chemical materials.
These types of shoes are not just essential but also recommended by Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) that each employer ensures their employees who work in such environments be equipped with these safety shoes to avoid foot injuries.
You must have a pair of Safety Shoes if your work environment is as of below
- If you handle heavy objects or at a place where objects are prone to fall from a height
- Heavy lifting, handling pipes, large tree trunks and barks, heavy stones, wheels or round objects that can easily roll over your feet and cause injury
- Hazardous Materials environment (HAZMAT)
- A workplace where there is an involvement of tools such as axes, knives, nails, scrap yard, glasses, electrical open circuiting, etc.
- Working in a place where there is bound to be static electricity
Types of Safety Shoes with varying toe protections
Our Feet; toes being the most vulnerable part of the body, it is vital that we have a clear understanding of what type of safety shoes we are going to invest in and what benefit do they bring onto the table. After all, who would want a squished toe just by not being careful into considering which steel toe shoe they are investing in? Let us dig deep into what type of toe safety each shoe provides and what are various Steel Toe shoes exist in the market to date.
Steel toes
Steel toes offer better protection from objects that fall off from great heights than the other types. Although this is their primary benefit, a significant no-no originating from these shoes is the fact that they get cold or warm too quickly. So ideally these type of shoes are not ideal in warm temperatures. As per the international norms and standards, a toe protection shoe must be able to withstand 200 joules of impact and carry 100 kg of resting mass. Such shoes are manufactured in such a way that they can bend with ease without disrupting the geometry of the shoe itself.
Alloy Toes
These type of safety shoes share the same features as that of a steel toe shoe and are known for being reliable in the industrial standards. These shoes, however, weight 50% less as compared to their steel counterpart, offering greater mobility and also elasticity in terms of being able to bend and twist without them breaking.
Soft Toes
These type of shoes do not compose of any steel or alloy toe and are made solely to provide comfort and protection for carrying out chores that do not require any of the above-enlisted work hazards.
Composite Toes
These type of safety shoes are composed entirely of plastic or carbon-fibre.