Keep your safety footwear up-to-date and legal

The deadline for updating safety footwear certifications to EN ISO 20345:2011 has now passed.

by Peter Doughty

Concerns raised in Europe leading up to 2011 brought the safety of the penetration resistance test in EN ISO 20344:2004 into question. Hence, when EN ISO 20344 was revised, two new test methods – one for metal (corrosion) and one for non-metal (penetration) inserts – were included, and it was accepted that these revised procedures would solve the situation. Consequently, this implied that these latest versions of the standards have an improved level of safety, so compliance with the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Directive could not be supported by testing to the 2004 versions of the standards. The list of harmonised standards in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) originally gave the presumption of conformity, transferring over from EN ISO 20345:2004 to EN ISO 20345:2011 on 30th June 2012. However, after further negotiations, manufacturers were given an extension of a further 12 months up to 30th June 2013.

Legislation now in force

The 30th June deadline for the updating of safety footwear certifications to the latest standard EN ISO 20345:2011 has now passed, and no safety footwear claiming penetration resistance should be placed on the market unless it has been shown to comply with the requirements of this new standard. During this transition period, SATRA personnel have been busy updating certificates for our customers, and we estimate that over 1,000 products have been recertified to EN ISO 20345:2011.

Publishing Data

This article was originally published on page 14 of the October 2013 issue of SATRA Bulletin.

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