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  Safety Issues

Non-standard Platforms

The term 'packaging' is used to mean both the materials used and the process of using them. Wooden packaging includes boxes, punnets, trays, cases, crates, pallets, stillages, collars and bins when made exclusively or primarily of wood. Container is an old fashioned term for wooden boxes and crates but this eventually became confused with the ISO Series 1 Freight Container, so use of the term container has largely disappeared from wood packaging standards.

Skid based used in export packing cases

The American term crate is in European terminology a case but in Britain crate means an open-boarded case where the goods can be viewed. Box - means an open top case and is demonstrated by BS 7611: Potato storage boxes for mechanical handling.

The illustration above shows a skid base forming a part of almost every large packing case or crate. There are no specific dimensions for such items, nor (in the UK) a constructional standard, they are built especially for the size of the case and goods to be shipped. The skill is to create a base strong enough in both horizontal dimensions (length and width) so as not to overstress the items shipped and cause damage. This is the only area in packaging where BS EN strength graded timber (as used in almost all buildings) if used for a skid, can give a packer confidence in the actual strength of a structural case member.

ISO is particularly interested in encouraging international trade and has precise definitions that ensure that things are not encouraged if they do not efficiently fit international goods handling equipment. For example, if a pedestrian pallet truck cannot lift what otherwise looks like a pallet, it is not classed as a pallet eg. the typical stillage shown in PALLETS/MODEL DRAWINGS has a deck around 200 mm high, so a European pedestrian pallet truck with its maximum lift of 170mm cannot lift it. So the stillage is discouraged from use in international goods handling by being excluded from the 'bible' for pallets suitable for international trade - ISO 6780.

Stevedore pallet

Although some non-standard handling items like the stevedore pallet, furniture pallet, the stillage and glass (A-frame) stillage are popular, there are no BS or EN standards to cover their construction. PalletLink have collected the most common construction details for some of these and put them into various Datasheets, some follow, some can be found using QUICK SEARCH. These items are not part of our normal remit as the ground rules for size, hazards and safety factors are not agreed in any published official standards.

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