Hygiene areas and practices

General . For each employee working in a beryllium work area or who can reasonably be expected to have dermal contact with beryllium, the employer must:
1. Provide readily accessible washing facilities in accordance with this standard and the Sanitation standard (§ 1910.141) to remove beryllium from the hands, face, and neck; and
2. Ensure that employees who have dermal contact with beryllium wash any exposed skin at the end of the activity, process, or work shift and prior to eating, drinking, smoking, chewing tobacco or gum, applying cosmetics, or using the toilet.
Change rooms In addition to the requirements of paragraph (i)(1)(i) of this standard, the employer must provide employees who are required to use personal protective clothing or equipment under paragraph (h)(1)(ii) of this standard with a designated change room in accordance with this standard and the Sanitation standard (§ 1910.141) where employees are required to remove their personal clothing.

NOTE: The general sanitation standard, at 29 CFR 1910.141(e), provides that, "whenever employees are required by a particular standard to wear protective clothing because of the possibility of contamination with toxic materials, change rooms equipped with storage facilities for street clothes and separate storage facilities for the protective clothing shall be provided." In the preamble to the Beryllium standard, OSHA has indicated that personal protective clothing may be worn over street clothes unless if doing so could reasonably result in contamination of the workers’ street clothes. (Please note that such contamination can occur both during the work operation and at the time the worker removes the personal protective clothing.) In situations where street clothes could reasonably become contaminated, employers must select and ensure the use of appropriate personal protective clothing that is worn in lieu of street clothes, and must provide change rooms per the requirements of the sanitation standard. In those situations where removal of street clothes is not necessary, change rooms are not required.
Showers
1. The employer must provide showers in accordance with the Sanitation standard (§ 1910.141) where:
  1. Airborne exposure exceeds, or can reasonably be expected to exceed, the TWA PEL or STEL; and
  2. Employees' hair or body parts other than hands, face, and neck can reasonably be expected to become contaminated with beryllium.
2. Employers required to provide showers under paragraph (i)(3)(i) of this standard must ensure that each employee showers at the end of the work shift or work activity if:
  1. The employee reasonably could have had airborne exposure above the TWA PEL or STEL; and
  2. The employee’s hair or body parts other than hands, face, and neck could reasonably have become contaminated with beryllium.
Eating and drinking areas - Wherever the employer allows employees to consume food or beverages at a worksite where beryllium is present, the employer must ensure that:
1. Beryllium-contaminated surfaces in eating and drinking areas are as free as practicable of beryllium;
2. No employees enter any eating or drinking area with beryllium-contaminated personal protective clothing or equipment unless, prior to entry, it is cleaned, as necessary, to be as free as practicable of beryllium by methods that do not disperse beryllium into the air or onto an employee's body; and
3. Eating and drinking facilities provided by the employer are in accordance with the Sanitation standard (§ 1910.141).
Prohibited activities - The employer must ensure that no employees eat, drink, smoke, chew tobacco or gum, or apply cosmetics in regulated areas.

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