Improving Worker Protection Through Standards Development ASTM Committee F23 on Protective Clothing

摘要

ASTM Committee F23 on Protective Clothing has a long and successful record of developing voluntary consensus standards. These standards serve to improve the well-being of workers across a broad range of occupations. The committee's formation in the mid-1970s was stimulated in part by the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. Preventing worker contact with chemical carcinogens was the initial concern. In 1977, a group of users and producers of protective clothing met in Valley Forge, Pa., to discuss the creation of a new technical committee on protective clothing. The group established a scope and mission statement, thereby forming ASTM Committee F23 on Chemical Protective Clothing. The first actual committee meeting was held Jan. 18-19, 1978, at ASTM International Headquarters, which were then in Philadelphia, Pa. Standard chemical and physical test methods for protective clothing were needed. Hence, chemical and physical subcommittees were established as well as a planning committee. In 1981, the committee's first test method, F 739, was approved (see the sidebar at right). Today, F23 has jurisdiction over more than 40 standards for protective clothing, ranging from chemical, physical, and biological protection to chain saw and fire protection.