Ear plugs are worn in the ear and must fit the worker s ear. They should only be worn in healthy ears. Foam plugs should be soft and springy. They must be compressed so they can expand after inserting in the ear. The other common type of hearing protection are earmuffs that are worn outside the ear.
Earmuffs require a good seal to be effective.
Ear plugs or muffs make it difficult to hear warnings from co-workers, alarms or other warning signals. You should be able to hear alarms when wearing protection. The OSHA noise standard limits the amount of exposure to noise to 90 decibels averaged over an 8-hour day. This means the louder the noise, the less time workers can be exposed. The chart below shows the amount of time that workers can be exposed to different decibel levels of noise.