Over-protection often comes from well-meaning employers buying the strongest hearing protection they can find - hearing protection with the highest SNR. They mean well but it often actually increases risk and for the employer, means more of the money they spend on hearing protection is wasted.

There is no exemption from the need to wear hearing protection for forklift drivers. High noise will have the same impact on them as on any other person. Their hearing will still be damaged by noise.

It is common to hear someone claim a medical exemption from the need to wear hearing protection at work, sometimes backed up with a note or letter from a GP, or sometimes self-claimed, but are medical exemptions from the need to wear hearing protection possible?

A common recommendation I have seen from Occupational Health Physicians has been ‘recommend wear double hearing protection’. What they are saying is that they recommend the person concerned wears two sets of hearing protection, usually a plug and a muff over the top, but to be honest, it is nonsense and usually has no link to the findings of the noise assessment.

Noise levels can be very high when riding a motorbike - easily in the mid-90s dB(A) which can damage hearing. Ear plugs need to be enough to remove some of the noise but not isolate you from traffic, and they need to be soft and not painful under the helmet. These are some recommendations.

Can wearing ear plugs cause tinnitus when worn all day in a factory?

Sometimes people will say using ear plugs causes them to get ear infections, but do ear plugs actually cause infections? Short answer, no. Dirty hands putting them in, that can cause an infection, but not the plugs themselves.

This is a common question for hearing protection, be it due to external noise from life in a town or city, shift workers trying to sleep when everyone else is awake, trying to sleep in hotels, or just with a partner who snores a lot.

Most foam ear plugs are single-use and should not be reused, meaning worn, taken out and then put back in again. To check the effectiveness of reusing ear plugs I did hearing tests while wearing brand new and worn ear plugs and the results confirmed it, disposable ear plugs should only be worn once.