Manufacturing foot protection

Responding are Brad Costephens and Daniel Gaines, product development, Warson Brands, St. Louis.

Safety footwear is personal protective equipment designed to protect feet from potential hazards at work. Many hazards can be limited with safety footwear, but the most common hazard is falling objects. Safety toe caps are used in PPE footwear to protect toes from being harmed, while metatarsal guards are an option for further protection of the foot.

The most common types of safety toe caps are steel and composite. Safety toe caps provide a hard covering of the toe area to shield it from falling objects to avoid serious injury. ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, has set standards and certifications for safety footwear-specific toe cap performance. The construction must meet specific performance requirements to be certified to the ASTM F2413 standard for impact and compression safety.

The construction of the shoes is aimed at making sure these safety requirements are met and maintained during production. Steel and composite toe caps are tested with the same method. Although they’re different materials, both offer various benefits to the wearer and are certified to the same set of standards. Toe bumpers built into the uppers also can help provide some protection against impact and compression. The extra layer of dense materials can absorb the initial impact before the cap is struck.

In addition to toe caps, metatarsal guards can be used in safety footwear to protect the metatarsal bones between the toes and ankle. Internal and external met guard offerings are available for additional protection from larger objects. Internal met guards are placed inside the shoe beneath the laces. They’re connected to the top of the toe cap so the protection of the cap continues to the met guard and up the foot toward the ankle. These guards are often made of durable polyurethane that’s designed to harden on impact. External met guards sit on top of the shoe, above the lacing/closing area of the footwear.

The material makeup of the external met guards is much more diverse than toe caps. Hard plastics, polyurethane, metal and even leather are among the more common external met guard materials. All metatarsal guards are also tested for impact protection using the ASTM F2413 method. Both internal and external met guards must pass minimum standards to be certified as MT protective. These tests set a baseline of expected performance in safety for the industry and allow consumers to know their feet are well protected.

Toe caps and metatarsal guards are crucial to reducing workplace injuries. For this reason, quality control of production is heavily monitored. Routine testing and proper assembly of the footwear is necessary to ensure the best construction, leading to better footwear and fewer incidents on the job.

Editor's note: This article represents the independent views of the author and should not be considered a National Safety Council endorsement.