UPDATED 02/02/2022

Research has shown that only 1 in 10 employers give clear instructions to their employees on how to treat and maintain workwear. Moreover, 61% of workwear does not end up being washed correctly. On the contrary, in most cases, the workwear comes out worse than before and you increase the risk of contamination of your personal clothing.

If you think about it, wouldn’t it be more logical for the employer to have workwear maintained by a professional laundry service? Or is that not compulsory?

There aren’t any prizes for guessing. Therefore, in this blog post, we’ll explain the dangers, who is responsible, and what the law says.

Who is responsible?

Europe regulates the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the Directive 89/656/EEC (not to be confused with the Manufacturers Directive 89/686, which transitioned over to the new Regulation (EU) 2016/425). Directive 89/656/EEC answers the question “How do I protect my employees?” and mainly focuses on risks that employees may encounter.

The consequence of such a directive is that each European country transposes it into its own national legislation. This also includes the maintenance of PPE and workwear. Belgium, the Netherlands, and France all have slightly different legislation based on the same European directive.

Belgium

In Belgium, the European legislation on the use of personal protection (Directive 89/656/EEC) is included in the Royal Decree of 13 June 2005.

It states that employees may not take PPE home (Article 19) and that the employer is responsible for paying for the maintenance, cleaning, and repair thereof (Article 21).

There is also a specific Royal Decree (RD of 6 July 2004) that forbids employees from washing their (non-protective) workwear at home. However, there are a few exceptions.

Some collective labour agreements (CLA) stipulate that employees are entitled to an allowance so that they can take care of purchases, maintenance, and repairs themselves. The Royal Decree provides this possibility as long as the contaminated clothing does not constitute a health hazard. Check the collective agreement first to know which sectors have an exception. From the moment a garment has come into contact with, for example, chemicals or pesticides, it may no longer be washed at home.

The Netherlands

In the Netherlands, Directive 89/656/EEC has been incorporated into the Working Conditions Act, or Arbowet for short. The Working Conditions Act has led to a Working Conditions Decree and a Working Conditions Regulation. These translate the guidelines of the law into practical procedures.

• Personal protective equipment must be maintained, repaired, and kept clean.
• The responsibility for its care lies with the employee. The employee must follow the applicable regulations.

Does this mean that Dutch employees may/must take their clothes home and wash them there? In some cases, absolutely not. The Working Conditions Regulation therefore deals with this separately:

• Working with hazardous substances, such as asbestos
• Working with carcinogenic or mutagenic substances
• Working with biological agents

In these cases, a specialised laundry service must clean the workwear.

France

In France, it is the Code du Travail that interprets the Directive 89/656/EEC. At the level of maintenance and repair, Article R4323-95 states that the employer shall provide personal protective equipment and workwear to the employee free of charge. Furthermore, it is the employer’s duty to ensure that PPE and workwear continue to function properly and remain hygienically clean.

French law does not address the issue of washing workwear at home or the issue of compensation for the employee.

As with the Working Conditions Act in the Netherlands, there are some exceptions. Clothing contaminated with asbestos, biological agents, or other carcinogenic substances must never be taken home. And certainly never washed at home. But there is also an exception in the other direction. When employees wear their own workwear at work, they do receive compensation for this.

What are the dangers of washing workwear at home?

Before you decide to take workwear home with you, you must keep in mind that this is not always risk-free. Hence the legal restrictions.

The protective properties built into your workwear are only maintained through regular and proper care. Industrial laundries clean your dirty workwear for you and take care to maintain the protective properties in doing so. If they determine that your workwear no longer protects you sufficiently, they will either report it or automatically replace it with new clothing, depending on the type of maintenance contract.

Read also: rent or buy workwear: a fair comparison

Here are a few examples that are obvious for a professional laundry service, but that you might not think of immediately:

Dull fluorescent colours

If you wash reflective clothing together with other (dark) clothing, the bright colour that guarantees your safety may become very dull.

If your garment consists of fabrics in both bright and dark colours, these so-called contrast fabrics are carefully chosen and certified. This means that they cannot dull the fluorescent colour. Don’t let that fool you.

Protection from chemicals

If you wash protective clothing with a chemical-repellent finish yourself, you cannot update and activate that finish in the way a professional laundry service can. The result is that your clothes will no longer be able to repel the chemicals (sufficiently) in the future and you will be exposing yourself to unnecessary danger.

Fabric softener

Did you know that fabric softener is the death knell for protective clothing?

The properties of a fabric softener are precisely the opposite of those of a repellent finish. One wash is enough to literally ‘kill’ your clothes. Fire-retardant properties are also affected by the residues left behind. Even the adhesion of reflective strips and logos can be affected by fabric softener.

Conclusion

Washing protective clothing is an art in itself and quickly becomes technical with terms such as finish. The dangers are too great to play with if you don’t have the knowledge.

In any case, it is best to have your workwear washed by a professional laundry service. They know the consequences and also have the necessary means to solve problems.

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