Shipping International in or on any wood packing material like pallets or crates requires the shippers adherence to the rules and regulation of the FAO or the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization who established regulations for Wood Packing materials controls through country cooperation with the IPPC or International Plant Protection Convention.
What does all this mean? Well if your an exporter of goods and you want the items packaged for freight transportation it is likely you will want to use wood pallets or crates. If you do use these items the WPM must have a stamp (Like Gateway Crate and Freight's Stamp pictured above, our license number is US-20468) visible on the outside of each pallet or crate.
The stamp is the certification that the material used in the packing meets the IPPC requirements of being either Heat Treated HT or treated with Methyl Bromide MB. On our stamp above you can see for this crate we utilized Heat Treated wood signified by the HT below our certification number.
Gateway Crate and Freight is a certified IPPC WPM Facility. Our crating facility is inspected once a month and our lumber data for exports is monitored and recorded.
I have had to explain to a number of clients that its the facility that is certified. The reason this is important is because when we do an off site crating job and the client asks for an additional crate or pallet we have to build it back at the facility for it to be in compliance.
There is a separate dunnage stamp that is used for WPM. All dunnage is pre-stamped prior to going out to the site to block and brace items into crates or containers.
We purchase HT lumber from wood forest suppliers, although you can find some HT lumber at places like Home Depot and Lowes to be able to use the lumber for export it would still need to have the certification stamp on the WPM even if the Mill stamped the HT on the lumber and it is made visible.
I talk about this because we have had clients make their own crates using these materials and ask us to stamp their crate. The certification program does not allow us to do this. Our stamp will only appear on crates we make out of materials we buy.
This program serves a good purpose in that it was implemented to prevent the spread and introduction of pests of plants and plant products, and to promote appropriate measures for their control.
If you need to export products and utilize standard shipping containerization policies using WPM it is important you understand the regulations and requirements for your shipment. If you need help with this information to ensure your export shipment goes smoothly call our crating professionals at 855-474-4685 or visit our website www.gatewaycrateandfreight.com.
Gateway Crate and Freight and Gateway Optimum Transportation is an asset Light 3rd Party Logistics company located in Tempe, AZ offering pickup, delivery, crating and professional packing services as well as International and Domestic Shipping management.
Comments
Post a Comment