The Safety First Association and SAPEMA hosted SA’s first PPE conference in March, cramming 20 papers into a 2-day event, which also featured a number of PPE supplier stands. Here, we carry edited versions of 7 of them to illustrate the diversity of the topics. We expect to carry more in the next edition.As several speakers pointed ...more

Leighton Bennett, the Safety First Association chairperson and a SHE and risk management consultantThe hosts of this first PPE Conference held in South Africa, were the Safety First Association and SAPEMA, on the 10 and 11 March 2026, at the Emperor’s Palace, in Kempton Park.This conference objectives were to provide a unique opport ...more

Appearances and claims to the contrary, South Africa’s PPE industry “is largely unregulated, and a high percentage of PPE on the market is not compliant with official standards”, uvex Safety SA MD Christo Nel said, “and that’s a problem at many levels, and for the entire value chain”.He said the fundame ...more

The Safety First Association (SFA) and the Southern African Protective Equipment Marketing Association (SAPEMA), both non-profit organisations, are jointly putting together a PPE conference to be held at Emperors Conference Centre, Kempton Park, on 10 and 11 March.This will be “a ground-breaking event, creating a programme packed wi ...more

Pretoria, Gauteng, SA – South African safety footwear manufacturers and importers will have to wait until 08 October to get answers from the National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) after a 3-hour, 30-minute Microsoft Teams ‘stakeholder meeting’ on 11September overran its timeslot – and that was afte ...more

Chinese online retailers Temu and Shein, which deliver parcels to individual consumers directly from China, have opened a loophole for noncompliant safety footwear and respiratory protection equipment to enter SA.The safety footwear styles offered by both do not have National Regulator for Compulsory Standards (NRCS) approval numbers, and ...more

Johannesburg, Gauteng, SA - Shortages of facemasks and coveralls caused by the pandemic have resulted in many PPE distributors and resellers "turning a blind eye" to checking that the products they sell meet required standards, according to Deleane Luzzatto, chairperson of the Southern African Protective Equipment Marketing Asso ...more

SAPEMA KZN Regional Meeting, October 2Durban, KZN, SA - Foreign exhibitors at A-OSH were a major topic at SAPEMA's KZN regional meeting. Chaired by Clyde Beattie of Uvex, who is also SAPEMA's national vice-chairman, just 5 people, representing 4 of SAPEMA's 16 KZN members, attended. A-OSH SAPEMA is in discussions with Specialise ...more

Being responsible for ensuring that your work force has the correct and sufficient protection when it comes to PPE,  can carry some serious weight, the reason being that you have your employee’s safety on one hand and the company's bottom line and PPE spend on the other. Balancing these two important factors has huge implicatio ...more