9.3 PPE Care, Wash, and Disposal

Clean PPE is part of the protection

A chemical-resistant glove with a pinhole, a suit still wet with yesterday's concentrate, or coveralls that rode home on the back seat are not PPE. They are exposure devices. National Core Chapter 6 and WPS handler rules treat care, wash, storage, and disposal as the second half of selection. Georgia General Standards will ask the same ideas because Rule 40-21-3 tests safety, and because a crew that buys the right nitrile glove and then contaminates the lunch cooler has missed the point.

Inspect before each use. Hold gloves up to light, look for swelling, stiffness, cracks, and discoloration. Check boot soles and suit zippers and seams. Check respirator valves, straps, and gaskets (9.2). If it is damaged, it is out of service. WPS tells the agricultural employer to provide handler PPE that is clean and in operating condition. That duty does not transfer to an uncertified mixer as "use the stained pair."

Doffing without spreading residue

Most handler exposure at the end of the job is not a new splash. It is taking dirty gear off with bare hands. National Core order of ideas:

1. Use the decontamination supplies before you are standing in the pickup cab.
2. Wash gloves while they are still on so the exterior is not the first thing your bare skin touches.
3. Remove goggles or faceshield, hat, and suit or coveralls so the contaminated outside folds away from you (often taught as peeling inside-out).
4. Remove boots without dragging the cuffs across socks.
5. Remove gloves last among the chemical-resistant items, again inside-out, then wash your hands and face with soap and water.
6. Wash as soon as possible even if you "only" ran the nurse tank.

Do not roll a contaminated suit onto the truck bench, then eat. Do not pull goggles off so that the sweaty, sprayed skirt wipes your eyes. If labeling required eyewear, eyeflush water must already be immediately available — that is a WPS handler rule, not a nice extra.

WPS decontamination supplies and the 1/4-mile teaching

For agricultural pesticide handling under WPS, decontamination supplies are:

• Soap
• Water in enough quantity for routine washing and emergency eyeflush (WPS sets minimum gallons per handler at the start of the work period; National Core teaching emphasizes "enough water," not a Georgia-gallon statute)
• Single-use towels
• A clean change of clothing for emergencies (coveralls or equivalent) so a soaked handler does not drive home in concentrate
• Eyeflush: when labeling requires protective eyewear, WPS requires eyeflush water immediately available to the handler (commonly taught as a pint in a portable container at mix and load, on the person, or on the application vehicle — follow the current WPS statement rather than a Georgia code citation)

Distance: WPS agricultural decontamination for handlers and workers is commonly taught as within 1/4 mile of the work area, unless a WPS exception or the labeling says otherwise. Typical exceptions taught with that rule: supplies at the mixing and loading site for mixers and loaders; at the aircraft loading site for pilots; and, when the nearest place of vehicular access is farther than 1/4 mile in a remote block, supplies at that access point. Attribute this to WPS (40 CFR Part 170), not to a Georgia statute. Rule 40-21-5 is records. Rule 40-21-8 is contractor financial responsibility. Neither is the 1/4-mile decontamination rule.

On a 200-acre cotton block south of Albany, "the shop in town" is not 1/4 mile. Put water, soap, and towels where handlers can actually reach them. On a Category 24 route with many small lawns, the nurse truck is often the decontamination point — it still has to be reasonably accessible, stocked, and not an empty jug.

Workers in the field after application have their own WPS decontamination rules (including the same 1/4-mile teaching). This chapter stays on handlers, but the exam may pair the two because both are WPS, not Georgia posting-sign law.

Wash separately — do not take contaminated PPE home as family laundry

Reusable fabric coveralls and some chemical-resistant items that the manufacturer says can be washed must be cleaned after each day's use, or sooner if they are wet with spray. Wash PPE separately from family clothes, crew lunch towels, and children's laundry. Use hot water as the garment instructions allow, a full detergent cycle, and a clean-water rinse. Run an empty washer cycle afterward if the machine is also used for other loads. Wear chemical-resistant gloves while handling dirty PPE. Hang items to dry; strong sun degrades some polymers, so follow the manufacturer. Store clean PPE in a closed place away from concentrates, so the storage shed does not recontaminate the morning's gloves.

Never treat contaminated handler PPE as ordinary clothes in the family laundry. WPS expects the employer to clean and maintain handler PPE. Sending a concentrate-splashed suit home with an employee so a spouse can "run it with the jeans" moves pesticide into a kitchen, a septic system, and children's clothing. National Core gives the same warning for heavily contaminated work clothes: they are not a household laundry problem. If a handler's personal long-sleeved shirt was worn as labeled work clothing and only lightly soiled, National Core still says wash it separately from the family load — not in the baby's whites.

Do not wash pesticide PPE in a creek, irrigation ditch, or storm drain. That is an application into water without a label.

Disposal of heavily contaminated items

A glove, boot, or suit that is soaked with concentrate, melted by solvent, ripped through the barrier, or swollen out of shape is finished. Discard it as the labeling and applicable waste directions require. A household wash cycle does not restore a saturated chemical-resistant film. Cut or mark disposed gloves so nobody fishes them out of a trash can and wears them. Follow the product label's storage-and-disposal statements and any hazardous-waste rules that apply to pesticide-contaminated articles. Do not burn PPE in a farm barrel as a disposal method unless a label and local rules actually allow that — they generally do not.

Disposable coveralls and disposable gloves are single-use or single-period items. Rinsing a disposable suit and hanging it for Friday is not a savings plan; it is a contaminated garment with no remaining design life.

Keep a written habit of replacing gear on a schedule even when it "looks fine." Chemical resistance is invisible until it fails.

Georgia heat while wearing chemical-resistant gear

Category 24 turf crews in metro Atlanta humidity and Category 21 row-crop applicators in the Coastal Plain regularly wear chemical-resistant aprons, gloves, boots, and sometimes full suits. That ensemble blocks evaporation. Heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke can look, at a glance, like pesticide poisoning: sweating, weakness, nausea, confusion. Chapter 8 of this guide separates those pictures. This section's rule is operational: heat does not authorize removing labeled PPE in the treated atmosphere. Manage heat with earlier mix times, shade at the pad, drinking water, rest cycles, cooling vests that do not replace the barrier, and stopping work when someone is altered. An enclosed cab that truly meets WPS substitution rules can reduce some PPE while you remain inside; opening the door in the sprayed peanuts returns you to full handler PPE.

A crew that "goes without gloves until it cools off" on a sod farm is in violation of the label and is also training the exam writer. The correct professional move is to keep the gloves and change the work plan.

Georgia pictures and care traps

A Category 21 mixer at a Tifton pad splits a jug down the front of a chemical-resistant suit. Soap, water, and towels must already be at that mix site under the WPS mix-and-load placement idea. Eyeflush must be immediately at hand if the label required eyewear. The suit is heavily contaminated. It is not "fine after a hose-off." Discard it as directed, put the handler in the emergency change of clothes, and wash skin. The family washing machine in town is not the cleanup plan.

A Category 24 crew finishes a long lawn route and throws coveralls into a personal duffel "to wash this weekend." That is how pesticide residue rides onto a child's shirt. WPS handler PPE belongs in the employer's cleaning process, separate from family laundry, the same day it was worn if it is reusable fabric.

A right-of-way crew (Category 27) working a remote stretch where the truck cannot follow every foot still owes WPS a decontamination point at the nearest vehicular access when that access is the WPS exception to the 1/4-mile picture. They do not owe a Georgia-numbered "50-foot soap rule." They do owe soap, water, and towels they can actually use before they climb into the cab.

Trap: rinsing gloves in a ditch. That is a water contamination event. Trap: storing clean respirators in the same cabinet as open insecticide jugs. Vapors load the cartridges and smell up the facepiece. Trap: citing Rule 40-21-9 landscape posting for decontamination distance. Posting is signs; WPS is soap and water. Trap: skipping PPE because of heat, then calling it first aid. Heat is managed without rewriting the label.

If you remember only four lines from Chapter 9: the label is the minimum; unlined chemical-resistant gloves and the A–H chart select skin PPE; NIOSH plus fit and seal select respirators; WPS soap, water, towels, 1/4 mile, eyeflush, separate wash, and no family-laundry shortcut keep the gear from becoming the exposure.