Do Slice Safety Blades Require Special Storage?
There are a few reasons that traditional blades require special handling and storage rules:
- Dangerously sharp new blades can easily cut bare skin
- Dull blades can still puncture or cut during disposal
- Rusty blades can infect skin
Slice Safety Ceramics™ are much less likely to cut you than traditional blades, are chemically inert, and never rust. These properties greatly reduce the chance of injury. Let’s take a closer look at Slice’s finger-friendly® blade edge and what it means for storage and disposal.
Finger Friendly
While a Slice blade can cut skin, it’s less likely to do so than any other blade. When we say “safe to the touch” we mean that the edges can be touched and handled (for example, during a blade change) with very little danger of an accidental laceration, compared with ultra-sharp blades (metal or non-Slice ceramics).
Our proprietary blade edge, combined with the rounded tips on many of our blades, lowers the chance of lacerations or accidental punctures to the point that these blades do not require special sharps box disposal. Dangerously sharp ceramic blades and all metal blades do require this extra safety step.
Mind the Tip
Slice does make blade styles with pointed tips that are more likely to cause punctures than our rounded tip blades. We encourage all users to dispose of pointed-tip blades sensibly to safeguard anyone who will be handling waste.
It should also be noted that while our blades are extremely strong (much harder than steel), they are not designed to be subjected to a side load. Any storage or handling method that places a side load on a ceramic blade risks breaking it because it’s more brittle than metal, which has some flexibility.
It’s also worth noting that this type of storage would be harmful to metal blades as well, distorting their shape over time. And, while ceramics are brittle, Slice blades are, by design, thicker than most ceramic blades, which allows us to create our finger-friendly grind.