How MorsaPack improved safety for a chemicals manufacturer
Service overview
Ensuring safety when transporting chemicals is essential for protecting people and the environment and ensuring the security of valuable products. DrumClips offer a safe, certified solution to ensure load stability for chemicals being transported in drums on pallets.
Client: The client manufactures and distributes a range of highly valuable chemicals for use in industrial and medical applications. The chemicals have high density (higher specific density than water), creating heavy load weights for packages being transported, and could be highly hazardous if incorrectly handled.
Product safety during distribution and transit is essential, primarily to prevent environmental hazards but also to reduce the risk of financial losses.
Request
The client wanted to understand where its packaging processes could be improved, to improve the safety and security of chemicals being transported. Their request to MorsaPack was to recommend and implement a certified and environmentally sustainable packaging solution.
Risks from uncertified packaging processes
The client had been using a strapping material and edge boards to secure drums, containing the chemicals, to pallets for transportation. Upon review, we found these were only suitable for pallets with weights up to 400kg – an average pallet weight for the clients’ products was 1,000kg. As such, the pallet loads were unsafe and it appeared to be only from good luck that products had not become dislodged or been spilled.
Context: Applying the correct packaging materials ensures reliable, safe pallet stability. Too little packaging – such as strapping with insufficient load resistance – risks products becoming dislodged during transit. However, too much packaging would add unnecessary weight, associated costs, and potential waste to already heavy shipments.
MorsaPack’s approach
We visited the client’s site to learn more about their chemical products and methods of transportation and distribution. We looked at how they were previously loading and packaging pallets and offered a comprehensive review of the products and processes being used.
With an understanding of the range of typical load weights of the client’s palletised products and the containment force required for goods in transit, we explained to the client’s teams how applying products with the correct strength and resistance for pallet weights is essential for safety. We then demonstrated how DrumClips are applied and used in conjunction with strapping, showing how each affixes to drums, pallets and trucks.
Once the client had approved the solution, we offered further guidance and training to staff, on correct application and removal of DrumClips and strapping, before supplying the products.
MorsaPack’s solution
We recommended an alternative loading and packaging solution, utilising DrumClips with PET strapping.
DrumClips are affixed to the rims of drums, holding two drums side-by-side and allowing strapping to be applied and tensioned using a battery-operated strapping tool. The solution can also be used to secure the pallets to trucks too, with strapping tensioned over DrumClips and affixed to rings on the truck bed.
This solution fulfils EUMOS 40509 requirements for pallet stability, thanks to the DrumClip’s triple certification. Using PET strapping offers greater load resistance, suitable to the weights and products being transported.
Outcomes
- Utilising packaging that is reusable or made from 100% recycled material
- Utilising a product certified to EUMOS 40509 standards
Client feedback
“MorsaPack gave us confidence that their recommendation was the right solution for our needs, not least because of the certification held by the specialist packaging product, the DrumClip.
“The simplicity of application and its versatility for use in securing the product to the pallet as well as the truck, really stood out. Crucially though, it assured us a of a safer method of loading, packaging and transporting our chemicals.
“Sustainability – for the environment first, and also for our bottom line – was just as much a focus of our conversations, and we felt confident in the solution provided.”
Production Director – Chemical Manufacturer, Preston
MorsaPack’s view
“The client was open to finding a new, safer and sustainable way of working – this was not about cutting costs, but improving operations.
“We have seen how pallet stability and product security during transit can pose real risks for chemical companies. If products can become dislodged once palletised, this risks contamination of waterways, damage of surfaces, injuries to workers or the public, and associated financial penalties (at the very least).
“The client grasped all this and was keen to learn more about safe, secure packaging processes.
“Our solution safeguards against all the risks outlined above. It offers the client a globally certified product as well as a sustainable solution – since DrumClips can be reused – using what we know to be the best product on the market for this application.”
Robert McEwan – Managing Director, MorsaPack
