A PPE cabinet Malaysia is a perfect piece of furniture for your lab to store various types of personnel protection equipment, ranging from clothes to first aid. Without any safety equipment at all, your lab should automatically be considered as a hazardous area that should be shut down for the safety of yourself and your workmates.
You may need more than one PPE cabinet so you can fit the rest of the equipment. Below are the essentials that you must invest in before you can run your own lab.
Lab coats
Whether you have advanced personnel protection clothing or not, the bare minimum that your lab must have are lab coats. They are not only worn as proof that you and your friends are legitimate scientists. The uniforms double as protection from chemical spills, low level biological agents, and so on.
If your coat is tainted by a spill, immediately wash it off under an emergency shower. Depending on the chemicals themselves, the coats must either be laundered professionally or be marked as disposal if they are dangerous enough to be considered as biohazard waste.
Of course, if more dangerous chemicals are involved in your lab, then make room for chemical proof suits inside the closet, and if you have to, store your lab coats in another or hang them somewhere safe and accessible for anyone.
First aid kits
No matter how minor the injuries are, it is a priority for you and your workmates to treat them immediately with basic first aid before you can seek further treatment in hospitals or clinics. A cut or a chemical burn can pose a risk of infection, which can worsen if it isn’t taken care of.
When storing a first aid kit in a PPE closet, make sure that it is already visible so it can be taken out quickly and rushed to the scene. Pick a bright color for added visibility, such as the classic white. A color like red, on the other hand, won’t make it entirely camouflaged in the closet, but it is still much preferable to make it noticeable from a distance, especially if the kit is placed outside the closet instead.
Fire protection
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Fire is a hazard that should be on the top of your list because it can spread uncontrollably and destroy your lab and materials. Although the flames alone are a danger to yourself, they are not the sole killers, as if it is big enough, the smoke can kill you through suffocation too.
Your lab must be spacious so the smoke won’t be able to trap any confined spaces and you have time to extinguish the fire or escape unscathed.
The immediate dangers of fires calls for fire safety equipment to be mandatory, without which you shouldn’t run your lab yet, genius. Extinguishers and towels are prominent examples that must fit into your PPE cabinet. You should also store a little more within the lab itself so in case you cannot reach the closet, you still have another within your reach.