Every site has one. A cupboard, a cage or a corner of the stores where returned kit ends up and nobody is quite sure what to do with it. A jacket with a broken zip. Three pairs of trousers the new start found too small. A high-vis vest that has been through the wash so many times it glows a dull cream.
The default is to leave it there until someone needs the space. It is also the point where a policy would have saved money and a small argument.
Here is the practical side of workwear coming back: what can be reissued, what is worth repairing, what has to be scrapped, and how to budget a replacement cycle.
The legal bit is shorter than most people expect
Regulation 7(1) of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 says PPE must be maintained, including replaced or cleaned as appropriate, in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.
That word does a lot of work. It covers cleaning, storage, inspection and replacement, with no annual test and no expiry date printed on a vest or a boot. Compliance is condition based, so somebody has to look at the kit and make a judgement.
Regulation 6(3) adds a review duty. Reassess if there is reason to suspect the assessment is no longer valid, or after a significant change of process, chemical or site.
And one thing worth getting straight with staff. You cannot charge them for PPE they need to do the job. Section 9 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 prohibits it, and regulation 3A extended that to limb (b) workers from 6 April 2022. "You break it, you pay for it" is not a policy that holds up.
Sort returns into three piles, not two
Most places work with still wearable and bin. Three piles is better: reissue, repair, scrap.
Reissue is outer layers that can be washed and put back into stock. Jackets, waterproofs, waders, tabards, body warmers. Check the fastenings and seams, check for contamination, then launder to the manufacturer's instructions.
Repair covers what a tailor can fix for a few pounds. Zips, buttons, hems, popped seams, a torn pocket. If £20.90 action trousers need a £6 zip, repair wins. If a £24.20 boot needs a new sole, it does not.
Scrap is for kit where the protection has gone rather than the appearance. Our rule of thumb is simple. If you would not wear it yourself on a site you do not know, it is scrap.
Some kit cannot be repaired, whatever it looks like
Hi-vis is the big one. The fluorescent background and the retroreflective tape both degrade with washing, sunlight and contamination. The tape has to hold a coefficient of retroreflection of at least 330 cd/(lx m2) after the number of wash cycles printed on the label. If no figure is printed, the material was only tested to five cycles.
A vest that has been through the laundry two hundred times since 2019 is finished even if it still looks like a vest, and you cannot clean tape back to spec once it has absorbed diesel or hydraulic oil.
Gloves are single use in any realistic sense. A cut-resistant glove with a damaged coating, a hole or a pulled thread has lost its rating. Chainsaw trousers that have taken a chain strike are withdrawn for good, because the protective fibres are pulled out and the protection at that point is spent.
Boots are a judgement call. A worn sole, a crack across the flex point, a crushed toecap, water coming through. Soles can be replaced on some welted boots, but not often at that price.
The logo problem nobody budgets for
Embroidered or printed kit that comes back is awkward. Removing embroidery from a polycotton jacket leaves a grid of needle marks that a new logo will not cover. Print can sometimes be unpicked with solvent, and sometimes it takes the surface with it.
Two ways round it. If you pool jackets and body warmers, buy them plain and put the logo on a separate tabard. If kit is personal, embroider at the point of issue rather than holding pre-badged stock that fits one person.
Personalised garments also sit outside the normal cancellation right under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, which is why most suppliers will not take them back. Getting the size right first time is cheaper than a returns argument, and we covered that in a sizing guide earlier this month.
Pool kit or personal issue
The regulations give a useful line. Where hygiene requires it, PPE has to be provided for that person's use only. Gloves, base layers, anything next to the skin, anything that gets sweaty. That is personal.
Outer layers can be pooled if they are cleaned and inspected between users. Write down what inspected means, because a wipe with a rag is not an inspection. Keep a simple issue sheet as well: date out, name, date back, condition, action. Thirty seconds, and it answers the question an inspector will ask.
A replacement cycle that fits a budget
Once you know what gets scrapped, the numbers get easier. Build the annual allowance from what people actually wear out, not from a round number.
The basics are cheap enough to hold as stock. A hi-vis vest is £2.99, a Regatta Pro polo £7.65, a pair of S887 action trousers £20.90, a Portwest Steelite S1P boot £24.20. Two vests and a polo a year is under £14. Boots and trousers together is £45.
Where it goes wrong is buying everything for everyone at once. Stagger it. Replace boots on the anniversary of issue rather than in a January panic, replace hi-vis on condition with a hard cap of twelve months for anyone on a highway job, and keep a small buffer of the cheap items so a ripped vest does not become a purchase order.
The other lever is role. A groundworker destroys trousers and boots faster than a warehouse picker. Photograph a worn pair at the point it comes back and after a year you have a replacement rate per role rather than a guess.
Getting rid of the scrap properly
Soiled kit is not always general waste. PPE contaminated with oil, chemicals, asbestos fibres or bodily fluids needs the right route, and your waste contractor is the person to ask rather than the bin.
Clean textiles that are simply worn out are worth keeping separate. Most Scottish councils take them at recycling centres.
Where to start
Pick one cupboard this week. Sort it into reissue, repair and scrap. Wash what can be washed, price the repairs, count what is left. Whatever number you arrive at is the start of your replacement policy, and a better one than anything written from scratch.
If a costed replacement schedule would help, we can build one from what you issue now. Call +44(0)1236 755544, or start with the hi-vis range and the safety boots.
REF: WORKWEAR-REPLACEMENT-POLICY
