After more than 80 years of experience in the sector, we have assisted our clients in the great controversy and confusion generated by this term.

So, maritime packaging and its characteristics is the main topic of today’s post. What essential elements are need to be used to comply with the regulations

Maritime packaging

 

To talk about maritime packaging we must take into account two parameters: oxidation-corrosion and the geographical situation.

1 OXIDATION – CORROSION

If the material of the load to be transported is sensitive to corrosion and oxidation, such as metal parts without surface treatment or electronic equipment (among the most common), we have to pay attention to the type of packaging that we will use to prevent the deterioration of the merchandise.

Discover our anti-corrosion products here.

The high concentration of water, steam and saline compounds make it necessary to design a protection system  that maintains a neutral atmosphere and isolates the burden of these external factors.

Among the elements that we can use for this purpose, we can highlight the insulating systems such as aluminum bags, shrink wrapping or VCI and environmental dehydration systems such as moisture absorbing salts.

It is essential to select the best insulating system, which will depend on the load we transport. They can be combined with those of environmental dehydration, always having to assess in the latter what will be the correct material and quantity for the complete elimination of excess water vapor inside the packaging, since not all dehydrating salts have the same percentage absorption.

In addition, there are different ways to measure this ratio depending on the area in which we are. Here are some examples of the most standardized measures with their respective equivalences.

 

2 GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION

Due to the international nature of transport and provided that the packaging has wood as a raw material, it is necessary to comply with the International Standard on Phytosanitary Measures ISPM 15, only to export to countries outside the European Union. For this it is necessary that all packaging bears its corresponding marking and certificate (the latter when required by the phytosanitary protection agencies of the countries of destination. The standard does not make it mandatory, but in some cases they request it due to ignorance).

ISPM 15 processed wood requirements
ISPM15 processed wood

 

Therefore, in most cases the wooden packaging must be marked with the ISPM15 of the supplier, but this is not always the case. For example, if we take a cargo to Denmark by ship, we will need anti-oxidation protection for the merchandise, but we will not need the ISPM15 marking as it is an EU member country. On the contrary, if we export to Russia and do it by road, we will need another type of cargo protection that does not necessarily have to be anti-oxidation, although we must comply with the international standard ISPM 15.