Employers beware! According to the New Zealand “Health & Safety Employment Act” employers must, amongst others, “provide suitable protective clothing and equipment to staff”. This includes safety prescription eyewear. To be compliant to this requirement, it is not enough to supply some protective side shields and/or plastic lenses. Protective prescription eyewear must comply to the AS/NZS 1337.6 standard.

These standards are quite specific and it is not enough to provide some plastic goggles and/or sideshields. Any safety eyewear must comply with the above standard.

Key changes to the safety glasses standards are:

• No glass lenses – even if hardened – are going to meet the new standard.
• The frames, not just the lenses, must meet specific safety standards. Because of the cost of the compliance testing, there are currently only a limited number of safety frame models available on the New Zealand market. It is unlikely that fashion frames will ever be labelled as meeting safety glass standards.
• This means that safety glasses for work will almost certainly have to be a separate set of spectacles to the employees own personal pair.
• Both the lenses and the frames must have indicators on them to enable safety authorities to check that spectacles worn comply with impact protection standards.

We provide certified safety eyewear in accordance with AS/NZS1337.6 safety standard for medium impact risk. The safety glasses are available in metal and plastic frames and are fitted with Hoya Phoenix safety lenses. These lenses are the only lenses completely resistant to common chemicals and are available in single vision, bifocals and progressive lens types. All our saftey eyewear is supplied with a safety certificate, confirming that frames and lenses do meet the required safety standards.