Safety at work: personal protective equipment PPE (amend. Directive 89/686/EEC)

OBJECTIVE: the proposal for a directive aims to abolish the requirement to indicate on each item of PPE (personal protective equipment) the year in which the "EC" marking was affixed. This administrative simplification would cut PPE manufacturing costs by 5% without affecting the level of safety (the date of obsolescence and the lifetime of PPEs subject to ageing are retained). SUBSTANCE: abolition of the requirement to indicate on each item of PPE the year in which the "EC" marking was affixed (i.e. the year of manufacture of the PPE). This indication was not beneficial to the safety of the user of the equipment and might be confused with the date of obsolescence which must be affixed to PPEs subject to ageing. The Member States will be required to implement this directive from 1 January 1997. �