Chemical Splash Goggles and the Eyewash Plan Behind Them

Chemicals call for goggles, not glasses

OSHA names liquid chemicals, acids and caustic liquids in the very first line of its eye protection rule, 1910.133(a)(1), right next to flying particles and molten metal. The hazard is not exotic. NIOSH lists industrial chemicals and cleaning products as common causes of chemical burns to one or both eyes, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology puts the count from household cleaners like bleach at 125,000 eye injuries a year. You do not need a lab to be exposed. A degreaser in a parts washer, a drain opener under a sink or a bucket of concrete cleaner is enough.

Prevent Blindness puts the rule in plain words: if you are working with chemicals, you should wear goggles. The reason is coverage. OSHA describes safety spectacles as glasses with impact resistant lenses and side shields on some models. A goggle, in OSHA's own description, is tight fitting and completely covers the eyes, the eye sockets and the facial area immediately around them. Liquid does not fly in a straight line the way a chip from a grinder does. It runs off a brow, drips from a hat brim and creeps around a frame. A seal against the face is what stops it, and our eye and face protection guide walks through the same split between impact jobs and splash jobs.

Direct, indirect or no vents

Every goggle traps a pocket of air in front of your eyes, and warm, damp air fogs a lens. Vents let that air out. The question for chemical work is what else they let in, and the three venting types on our goggle shelf answer it differently.

Read the third column before the second. The direct vent model is built for airflow on dusty, dry work, and its specs do not name chemical splash at all. For pouring and mixing, start with an indirect vent goggle or a sealed one. Indirect vents move air while keeping a liquid from taking a straight path to the eye. The Sellstrom Indirect Vent Industrial Goggle adds an extra wide face seal lip and a flame retardant strap, and its specs suggest it for school science labs.

A non-vented goggle gives up airflow entirely in exchange for a closed seal against smoke and splash. With no vents, the anti-fog coating carries the whole load, so keep the lens clean and let it dry between jobs. If you wear prescription glasses, OSHA 1910.133(a)(3) asks for protection that fits over them without pushing either pair out of place. The Sellstrom Non-Vented Anti-Fog Goggle is designed to fit over most prescription glasses, with a soft PVC body and an adjustable 18 inch flame retardant band. Its specs name ANSI Z87+. You will find all three venting types side by side in safety goggles.

A face shield over the goggle when you pour

Pouring from a drum, cutting a concentrate into a bucket or flushing out a tank throws liquid at your whole face, not just your eyes. OSHA's guide to personal protective equipment describes a face shield as a transparent sheet that runs from the eyebrows to below the chin and across the entire width of the head. It protects against splashes and sprays of hazardous liquids.

The same guide adds a limit worth taking seriously. A face shield will not provide adequate protection against impact hazards on its own. Used together with goggles or safety spectacles, it adds protection against both splash and impact. So the shield is the second layer, and the goggle stays on under it. Lift the shield to read a label and your eyes are still sealed. Our chemical splash protection shelf pairs goggles with shields for exactly this job, and the full run of visors and crowns is under face shields.

When the splash gets through: what OSHA requires

Goggles reduce the odds. They do not take them to zero, and the plan for the drop that slips past a seal belongs on the wall before the work starts. OSHA 1910.151(c) is short. Where the eyes or body of any person may be exposed to injurious corrosive materials, suitable facilities for quick drenching or flushing of the eyes and body shall be provided within the work area for immediate emergency use.

That regulation names no standard, no time and no distance. OSHA has said in a 2020 letter that 1910.151(c) applies only to exposure to corrosive materials. In a 2002 letter it explained that ANSI Z358.1 was never adopted as an OSHA standard, yet OSHA has often referred employers to it as a recognized source of guidance. ISEA, which publishes the standard, notes that many states require Z358.1 compliant equipment. In practice, the Z358.1 figures are the ones to plan around. The same OSHA section, in paragraph (b), also asks for a person adequately trained to give first aid and for first aid supplies within reach.

The ANSI/ISEA Z358.1 figures

ISEA explains that the standard follows established medical opinion: a 15 minute flush of the eyes and body provides emergency first aid mitigation. Everything else in the standard serves that quarter hour.

Each figure turns into a question about your own floor.

• Ten seconds, not 55 feet, is the real limit. Walk from the bench where you pour to the station and time it. An injured person may move slower than you do on a test walk, and a door, a step or a pallet in the path costs seconds.
• Z358.1 asks that an emergency shower sit on the same level as the hazard with a path free of obstructions. Hold the eyewash to the same idea.
• One second to open matters, and so does a valve that stays on until someone closes it, because it leaves the injured person's hands free.
• Flushing fluid between 60 and 100°F is the range Z358.1 accepts, and the person in front of it has to bear it for a quarter hour. A unit in an unheated shed in January or a hot truck bed in July can drift out of it.
• A weekly test on plumbed units, run long enough to see the valve work and the fluid arrive, is how you find a problem before an injured person does.

Why a squeeze bottle is not the plan

Small eyewash bottles are cheap and easy to hang on a wall, which is why they end up as the whole plan in many shops. OSHA addressed them directly in its 2020 letter. Written about blood and other potentially infectious materials, it states that portable eyewash bottles are insufficient to flush those from the eyes. The letter recommends access to an eyewash facility capable of flushing the eyes for the recommended 15 minute period.

Compare a bottle with the table above. Fifteen minutes at 1.5 liters a minute adds up to about 22 liters of fluid. A bottle can start the rinse on the way to the station. It cannot be the station.

A gravity-fed station where there is no plumbing

Plenty of chemical work happens far from a sink: a pump house, a job trailer, a field shop, a corner of a warehouse where the nearest water line is behind a wall. A self contained unit answers 1910.151(c) there. The Sellstrom Portable Gravity-Flow Eyewash Station is meant to be placed anywhere on a worksite or near a hazard when plumbing is not available. You start it by pulling down the yellow tray and its dual spray heads, and it runs hands free for 15 minutes of eye washing. It mounts on an epoxy coated steel wall bracket or stands upright on a flat surface. A 3 foot drain hose sends the waste water to a floor drain or a storage tank. Its specs name ANSI Z358.1.

ISEA states the weekly test for plumbed devices. A tank unit needs its own routine, so follow the instructions that come with it, write the refill date on a tag and keep the 10 second walk clear. Our eyewash station guide covers placement in more detail, and the stations and their parts sit together under eyewash stations.

Before you open the next container

• Read the label and decide whether the job is a splash job. Corrosives, acids, caustics and strong cleaners all are.
• Pick an indirect vent or non-vented goggle, and add a face shield over it when you pour or mix.
• Time the walk to the eyewash from where the liquid is handled, and keep that path clear.
• Test plumbed units weekly and keep portable units filled to their instructions.
• Make sure someone on the shift knows first aid, as 1910.151(b) asks.