Skip to content
STEELTOETOOLS
Toolbox talk · 10 min · Housekeeping & General

Protruding Nails and Debris

Hazards: Puncture wound and infection from stepping on a protruding nail · Impalement on uncapped rebar, stakes or protruding metal in a fall · Trips over scrap, cutoffs and banding in passageways and on stairs · Fire load from combustible scrap and oily rags left on the floor · Lacerations from handling scrap by hand

Why it matters

On July 18, 2019, a drywall installer working at 10:30 at night stepped on a piece of scrap with a nail in it. The puncture in his right foot got infected and put him in the hospital (OSHA Summary Nr 122953.015). A year later, a maintenance worker stepped on a nail in a parking lot, went home without reporting it, and 12 days later was admitted with an infection that took a toe (Nr 132436.015). Nobody plans for that. Using 2021–2022 BLS data, CPWR found 32.7% of nonfatal falls, slips and trips in construction were falls on the same level.

Key points

  • OSHA names your scrap. 1926.25(a): scrap lumber with protruding nails and all other debris is kept cleared from work areas, passageways and stairs. Kept — not cleaned up at 3:30.
  • Pull the nail, don't bend it. 1926.250(b)(8)(i): all nails withdrawn from used lumber before it is stacked.
  • A puncture gets reported the same day. Both cases above became hospital admissions through infection days later.
  • Caps have to stop an impalement. 1926.701(b): protruding rebar you could fall onto is guarded to eliminate the hazard. A thin plastic mushroom cap is not that — one broke in Nr 126745.015.
  • Cans within reach, lids on the dirty ones. 1926.25(b) and (c): waste containers, covers on oily and flammable waste, disposal at regular intervals.
  • Stairs and passageways are never storage. They are named in (a) because they are the route out.

Do / Don't

Do

  • Clear as you cut — the crew that makes the scrap owns the scrap.
  • Wear sturdy work boots; ask about puncture-resistant soles where cutoffs are everywhere.
  • Use a magnetic sweeper on slabs and decks before other trades follow you.
  • Cap or bend down every stake, dowel and bar sticking up out of a walking surface.

Don't

  • Kick scrap aside to keep working.
  • Carry an armload of nail-filled forms down a ladder.
  • Throw oily rags in an open can.
  • Walk off a puncture wound without telling anybody.

Quick site check

  • Walk the main route from the gate to the work face and count the trip and puncture hazards out loud.
  • Check that a waste container is within about 50 feet of every active work area, and that the oily-waste can has a lid.
  • Test one rebar cap by hand: does it feel like it would stop a body, or like it would split?
Discussion — ask the crew
  1. Look at the floor where you are standing: how many pieces of scrap with a nail in them can you see right now?
  2. Where do the cutoffs go on this job — is there a container within reach of where the work is happening?
  3. Who has stepped on a nail on any job, and what did you do about it that day?
  4. Which pieces of rebar or stakes on this site could somebody fall onto, and are the caps on them rated for impalement?
  5. Who is going to sweep the stairs and the main walking route before we leave today?
Refs: 29 CFR 1926.25 — Housekeeping: (a) scrap with protruding nails and debris kept cleared from work areas, passageways and stairs; (b) combustible scrap removed at regular intervals; (c) covered containers · 29 CFR 1926.701(b) — Protruding reinforcing steel onto and into which employees could fall shall be guarded to eliminate the hazard of impalement · 29 CFR 1926.250(b)(8)(i) — Used lumber shall have all nails withdrawn before stacking · OSHA Accident Search — Summary Nr 122953.015, 07/18/2019: a drywall installer working at 10:30 p.m. stepped on scrap wood with a protruding nail; the foot puncture became infected and he was hospitalized · OSHA Accident Search — Summary Nr 132436.015, 08/21/2020: a maintenance worker stepped on a nail, went home without reporting it, and 12 days later was admitted with an infection that cost him a toe · OSHA Accident Search — Summary Nr 126745.015, 11/14/2019: a laborer pushing a wheelbarrow fell onto vertical rebar; the cap was not intended for impalement protection and it broke · CPWR — Construction Chart Book, 7th ed. (2025), Chart 42c, from BLS 2021-2022 CFOI and SOIISign-in sheet included in the printed version

Frequently asked questions

Yes, by name and in the first sentence. 1926.25(a): during the course of construction, alteration or repairs, form and scrap lumber with protruding nails, and all other debris, shall be kept cleared from work areas, passageways and stairs, in and around buildings or other structures. Very few standards are that specific about a single piece of scrap.

Not under the text. 1926.25(a) says kept cleared, which is a continuous condition, not an end-of-shift task. 1926.25(b) then requires combustible scrap and debris to be removed at regular intervals during the course of construction, and requires safe means to be provided to facilitate such removal — chutes, carts, containers, not an armload down a ladder.

1926.25(c) requires containers for the collection and separation of waste, trash, oily and used rags and other refuse, and requires containers used for garbage and other oily, flammable or hazardous wastes — caustics, acids, harmful dusts — to be equipped with covers. Waste is then disposed of at frequent and regular intervals.

Because the injury that gets recorded is rarely the puncture. In OSHA Summary Nr 132436.015 a worker stepped on a nail, went home without telling his employer, was treated in an emergency room the next day, and 12 days later was admitted to a hospital with an infection that cost him a toe. In Nr 122953.015 the puncture also became infected and ended in hospitalization. Both started as a walk-it-off.

1926.701(b) sets the outcome, not the product: all protruding reinforcing steel onto and into which employees could fall shall be guarded to eliminate the hazard of impalement. A plastic cap that only keeps the rain off does not meet it. In Nr 126745.015 the cap on the bar was described in the OSHA record as not approved, designed or intended for protection from impalement — it broke, and the bar went through the worker's groin.

It does not clear the scrap from the walking surface, which is what (a) requires, and it leaves a piece of lumber that still has a nail in it. 1926.250(b)(8)(i) takes the other position for stored lumber: used lumber shall have all nails withdrawn before stacking. Pull it, drop it in the can, and the piece is safe to handle twice.

They are. Using BLS data for 2021-2022, CPWR reports that almost a third — 32.7% — of nonfatal falls, slips and trips in construction were falls on the same level, and another 18.2% were slips or trips with no fall at all. Those are the injuries that housekeeping controls directly.

Under 1926.20(b)(1) and (b)(2) the employer initiates and maintains the accident prevention program and provides for frequent and regular inspections by a competent person. In practice the crew that makes the scrap owns the scrap: the trade that cuts the studs picks up the cutoffs, and nobody leaves a stair or a passageway worse than they found it.

Sources & references

Content checked against these sources — last reviewed August 28, 2026.

Results are estimates for planning purposes and do not replace a competent person's evaluation or an engineer's design. Follow the OSHA standards that apply to your work and your employer's written program.

By — Editorial team of SteelToeTools.com (published by LSEA SAS) Updated