Most sites buy safety glasses the way they buy tea bags: a big cheap carton, left open in the site trailer, half gone by Wednesday. The pairs scratch against each other in the bottom of the box, nobody knows whose is whose, and by Friday someone is working in a lens like frosted glass. The one decent pair lives on the dashboard of the van.
A crew's glasses deserve the same care as its tools. That is what the Sitebox is for.
What it is
A lidded box in corrugated polypropylene with six slots, one pair to a slot, in any mix of tints. The lid keeps the dust off. There is a label on it for the site name, so the box that leaves the yard for a job comes back from that job. It is made in the UK, and it is recyclable when its working life is done.
How to fill six slots
Kit it for the work, not the headcount on paper. A sensible start for a crew of six working mostly outside:
- Two Smoke, for the bright days that make up most of the year.
- Two Clear, for inside work, early starts and anyone moving between the two.
- One Amber, for gray days and dusk.
- One Mirror or one Welding, depending on whether someone is up on a roof or on the cutting torch.
Six pairs of Clear at $45 each comes to $270, well past the $100 line for free tracked shipping. On a trade account it goes on invoice terms, with one contact who knows the job.
A case and a strap each
A complete box is more than glasses. Give each person a case and a strap. The case is molded EVA with a microfiber lining, a zip, a belt loop and a cloth included, made to outlast the glasses inside it. The strap is neoprene with silicone grip ends, it adjusts, and it floats. Between them, a pair is on a face, around a neck or in a case, and never face down under a tape measure.
Got the mix wrong? Swap any pair to another tint within sixty days, site worn or not.
A box with a lid and a name on it gets looked after. An open carton never does.
