One option you have with printed lanyards is to get a safety breakaway attached. They are still cheap lanyards to buy and can be very important in certain circumstances, especially with workers dealing with machinery, or kids in school if they need to wear lanyards. The breakaway feature allows the lanyard to snap apart under pressure and this ensures nobody can be accidentally injured around the throat or worst of all to be accidentally strangled. It might sound dramatic, but there have been cases of workers getting their lanyards tangled in machinery while they are wearing them and then not being able to get them off in time. Safety lanyards are also important in places like hospitals where they can sometimes be dealing with delusional people who don’t know what they are doing.
You can usually get safety lanyards in a range of colours including red, yellow, white, black, blue and many other options, giving you the freedom to match to your corporate colours with the added option of getting them printed. You might think all of this would be expensive, but even with custom printing, they are still cheap lanyards to purchase when you think of the functionality that they offer. many lanyard companies also stock them as plain lanyards ready to ship anywhere in New Zealand for next day delivery so make sure you shop around first before purchasing.
I am never sure whether lanyards have to have a safety breakaway or not. Is this something that is required by OSH? Is there someone who can clarify this for me?
Hi Gemma – if you’re not sure it’s always best to do breakaway lanyards. As they say – always better to be safe than sorry
Hi Gemma,
From my experience there is no legal requirement form OSH to have a safety breakaway, but if you are using the lanyards anywhere where they could get caught in machinery etc then you would need the safety breakaway.