The Most Unexpected Piece Of Accredited Security Equipment

In the modern, fast-paced and heavily mechanised industrial world, trade workwear is specially designed to meet the particular needs of different industries, intensely tested and accredited for use in certain professions.

For many industrial roles, wearing approved PPE is a legal requirement if a risk assessment presents the need for it, and whilst some pieces are more standardised, such as hard hats, steel toe cap boots and safety gloves, other types such as specialist chainsaw safety equipment are more bespoke.

However, there is one anomaly to this, in the form of an officially accredited safety shoe bought by millions of people each year, and yet often seen by people outside of a few regions as a novelty.

The klomp, a type of wooden clog shoe made and primarily worn in the Netherlands, is commonly bought by tourists as a souvenir, with the traditional and elaborately painted shoes being a symbol of the region as well as of the Netherlands more broadly.

With that said, there is still a huge number of Dutch people who will use them as well, given that they are often very affordable and resilient for use in gardens, on farms and in greenhouses.

Interestingly the whole-foot klompen, whilst historically used as a work shoe, received a CE Mark and received official accreditation as a safety shoe, having achieved EN ISO 20345 safety footwear standard accreditation.

Further testing has found that wooden clogs can endure extreme cold, extreme heat, concentrated acids, a falling blunt axe blade, penetration using a steel nail and pressure on the instep.

Another, similarly unintentional feature is that because wood cracks rather than dents when subject to extreme forces, it can in some cases make removal easier and safer than steel toe-capped shoes, which tend to dent and make removal more difficult.

This highlights that whilst safety design is always looking forward, there are many lessons to learn from history as well.