I assume there is something higher-grade than chemistry-lab splash goggles for this. There must be some protective equipment available for people working with white-hot aluminum.
Nobody should have to do a job that can lead to blindness.
"Nobody should have to do a job that can lead to blindness."
I agree. Yet in our society, where efficiency must often be balanced against safety, risk cannot be fully eliminated.
Council workers would surely be safer if the roads they repaired were closed for the duration, but we cannot stomach the roads being fully closed. Furniture movers would certainly suffer less chance of back injury if there were four men lifting that dresser instead of two, yet no-one would hire them if their prices doubled. And the aluminium smelter might well be able to significantly reduce its injury rate by investing billions in a new process, but the product would no longer be viable and the factory would close, simply moving the risk to a less caring jurisdiction.
One can continue like this all day. There's always a compromise, and most developed countries have settled upon a sweet spot. Workplace injury declines with advancing technology, and we should certainly do our best to minimise it, but while society values economic competitiveness over absolute personal safety, you can never eliminate risk, and maybe not even then.
You'd be surprised how many jobs can lead to injuries, including blindness.
I met a piano tuner with only one eye one day. He was tuning a grand piano, overstressed the string, it broke and the little loop at the end of it was shot off straight into his eye...
I'll bet you he never thought that piano tuning can lead to blindness either.
That jarred for me, having grown up in the UK where -- famously -- almost all piano tuners are blind. It's almost a cliche, and even schools for the blind were of the opinion that this was historically the best chance its students had of a 'normal job'.
I hope that this is no longer the case, but it certainly still was when I was at school in the 80s.
Conversely, people can stop working jobs that value economy over safety. I guess they must make enough money to not worry about the risk, which is somewhat sad.
Its called a danger premium. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't object to being paid 400k as a programmer in the Green Zone in Iraq. Or maybe you would, depending on your appetite for risk.
I worked in a machine shop for four years, and I can tell you that stuff happens no matter how good your gear is. There's always the odd bit of debris that bounces off your dust mask or something at just the right angle to make it under the small gap between your goggles and your face.
I'd think that they would work fine for this; they should absorb the kinetic energy of the impact and keep the molten aluminum out of your eyes, even if they do then melt quickly thereafter.
