Safety experts advise on footwear protection
To ensure workers across the UK are kept safe whilst at work, the UK’s leading safety expert, Arco, is continuing its efforts to educate the industry about the importance of robust, compliant, safety footwear.
Feet are often overlooked and underestimated at work – despite slips and trips being one of the most common sources of harm, causing, on average, 40% of all reported major injuries[i]. Arco’s mission is to keep people safe at work and, as the UK’s leading safety supplier, it offers the widest range of PPE in the UK, holding over 22,000 products, plus a wide range of own brand products that are ethically sourced. Footwear is an essential part of the Arco offering, with a host of safety footwear suited to numerous applications and across many sectors, including construction, manufacturing and distribution.
Arco’s own brand footwear: Trojan and Arco Essentials offer a guarantee of quality that products have been expertly designed, tested and are fit for purpose. In addition, Arco stocks footwear from the industry’s leading suppliers who are specialists in their field, including Dr. Martens and HAIX.
Arco has created an expert guide to better educate customers what to look for in safety footwear and in particular what type of footwear customers should purchase dependent on their workplace and industry, and the hazards they face. The guide also showcases the latest innovations in footwear, including the Boa System; an intricate lacing system that optimizes fit and provides precision, adaptability and control, and Vibram; high-performance rubber soles that guarantee the wearer great all-day comfort and durability, even in extreme conditions.
Emma Marrison, Product & Procurement Manager at Arco: “The quality of our products is one of the most important factors to our customers. We are committed to delivering high quality, safe and reliable footwear that will not only meet, but also exceeds customer expectations.
”We have heavily invested in the feat for quality and have our own, in house, Product Assurance Laboratory and go to great lengths to ensure both our own brand products and products we distribute pass EN type approvals and carry the ‘CE mark’ to prove certification.”
In its own testing laboratory, Arco carries out a number of performance testing procedures on footwear to EN 20345 requirements, including product assurance compression testing, slip resistance, electrical and water resistance. Arco monitors the PPE market very closely and tests a range of products available. Recently testing a number of footwear products available on the marketplace to find a substantial amount fail standard safety tests despite carrying CE certification. For this reason, Arco is determined to better educate the industry and encourages customers to be more safety conscious when considering their PPE choices.
All Arco safety footwear, both own brand and leading distributed brands, are sourced from reputable manufacturers committed to ethical trading standards and fully assessed for suitability for the intended purpose by Arco’s product experts – assuring customers that they are getting the best in foot protection.
For more information about Arco and to download the free footwear expert guide, visit www.arco.co.uk/safetyfootwear