ICE Chips

Q.  We use gloves in our plant to handle our products. We use blue gloves for raw products and white gloves for finished products. Rather than latex, we use a nitrile glove because of the skin sensitivities that so many people experience from latex. We also have white cotton gloves in the plant that are used for other purposes. Our employees have been complaining about sweaty hands because the nitrile gloves do not breathe. At some point, they began using the cotton gloves as an insert for the nitrile gloves to help absorb the sweat. Is there any alternative to this that will eliminate or reduce the sweating? We are finding the cotton gloves hung up all over the place to dry.

A. Moisture buildup in gloves is a very common issue that can lead to contamination issues if the glove is punctured or a leak occurs. There are pros and cons to wearing disposable gloves in a food plant setting and the merits of glove use have been discussed for quite some time and will likely continue for a long time more.

Gloves used in food plants result in sweat accumulation under just about any temperature setting. This has been an ongoing issue that I’ve run into since the beginning of my career.

I recently contacted a local surgical center to find out if there has been any advancement with breathable gloves. Unfortunately, there has been no change. One difference in the surgical field is that surgeons often use gloves with a talc coating to reduce the sweat. However, this also has caused problems by pulling moisture from the skin, resulting in a skin drying condition called eczema in some people. In some cases the hands actually become so dry that they crack and bleed.

Your employees’ practice of inserting cotton gloves into the nitrile gloves to help absorb the sweat is one of the better solutions I’ve seen for this issue as the cotton gloves do absorb quite a bit of sweat. However, I would suggest that your plant should establish a program to collect the used gloves and launder them rather than having the employees dry and reuse the gloves themselves. Soiled gloves can result in a number of undesirable skin conditions if they are not properly cared for and cleaned.

Another thing to consider is that cotton gloves will shrink when washed. Keep this in mind when sizing the gloves you purchase so that you do not end up with hundreds of gloves that are too small for anyone after the first washing.

The author is Head of Food Safety Education, AIB International.

Do you have a question for Al St. Cyr? If so, e-mail him at astcyr@aibonline.org.