Disposable Apparel vs. Industrial Apparel

Cost is a big difference between disposable cleanroom garments and industrial apparel. How ever it could cost you in the long run. While a lower price is the most attractive part of industrial apparel there are others differences too. Such as the materials, how they are packaged, and the environment that they are made in. It is critical to understand that you cannot just order industrial apparel and use it in your critical environment. Those materials could be very damaging to your critical environment and put your process to a halt. To learn more about the difference between the two watch the video below. 

Transcript:
Hi, I'm Greg Heiland and welcome to my weekly video blog, Critical Tips. This week’s inquiry that I will answer is “What's the difference between protective apparel and clean room or critical environment apparel?” I'll answer this question by breaking it up into the basic three subsets. The first one we will talk about is packaging, then we will talk about the substrate material and then the construction of them.
 
Well upon just obvious visual inspection, you can see protective apparel tends to be packaged in generic packaging. There's typically lot number information, there's no coding, no suitability of use. And when we open the protective apparel you can see that this protective apparel is an uncoated shipboard. So there's no bag in a bag. You just literally open the case and here you go with your protective apparel garment. You'll also note that these protective garments are contaminated by the uncoated shipboard. So, protective apparel is not bag in a bag and it's not packaged appropriate for taking into a gown room.
 
 In converse fact, let's look at disposable apparel design for a critical environment. The first thing that you'll see is that the product is appropriately labeled for a critical environment. When we open the carton box we see that we have a bag in a bag. So, that the proper protocol is when you open the carton box this is trashing procedure and then this is taken down stream to the gownroom. When we look at the bag in the bag we can see that the product is clearly labeled with the part number and a lot number and the construction of the product at the dispensing.
 
Another thing not to be overlooked is related to the packaging, is a clean room packaging is always flat pack, or bulk packed. This allows the product to be cut open, put in a dispenser and rapidly donned. With the cleanroom product you're looking for ease of use, you're looking for consistency of use. The opposite of that is a protective environment product, these shoe covers are all rolled up. So, the operator is going to have to spend a lot of time to unroll these, it's not very convenient. There's market differences between packaging, the most obvious one, is product designed for a clean room. Typically, state that they're designed for a clean room and then in this instance even the classification for the cleanroom that they're suitable for.
 
Let's talk a little bit about substrates. Generally speaking, the substrate material for protective apparel is just designed to protect the operator from contamination for their environment. Environment so protective apparel isn't designed; it's not engineered to ensure that the environment stays clean. What you're looking to do is to make sure that the operator is not contaminated. The substrate difference with critical environments is you're looking to make sure that the operator is not contaminated. You're also looking to make sure that the operator cannot contaminate the process of the product by having a garment that will flake or out gas or contaminate. So there's a market different with substrates.
 
Then finally, the construction. The construction is typical construction for protective garments are going to be a surged seamed. However, in some critical applications of protective apparel and hazmat suits or p3 or p2 suits. You're going to have a pressure suit that is going to be a bound seem. Typically, most clean room garments are bound seems. So, just to summarize there is a significant difference, protective apparel is designed to protect the operator from the environment and clean room apparel is designed for two purposes; to make sure that the operator has protection from the environment but also to make sure that the operator doesn't contaminate the product or process in their clean room environment.
 
Thank you.