News / Safety campaigners turn the spotlight on how industry can tackle poor box packing

12/02/2014

Having taken a giant step forward by ruling that containers must be weighed before being loaded onto a ship, the industry’s focus is now extending to include how the container is packed.

Poor practices in container packing means there is an accident waiting to happen on road, rail, barge, feeder, terminal and ship every day, according to industry sources.

When the International Maritime Organization agreed last September to amend the Safety of Life at Sea Convention (Solas), requiring that containers should not ...

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antonio zuidwijk
February 23, 2014 at 11:06 am
Sugestions:
1) IMO should immediately open a website dedicated to this very important matter, which is costing many lives.
2) As a first step and without any delay, put the text there of a booklet published in 1969 by the National Cargo Bureau of the USA, called THE SHIPPER´S GUIDE FOR PROPER STOWAGE OF INTERMODAL-CONTAINERS, WITH EMPHASIS ON OCEAN TRANSPORT.
3) Order all countries to make a translation in their language. As translations come in, make a link to that.
4) Make links to the publications about this subject that already exist in several languages, especially those of the TTCLUB.
5) Open a dialogue with TTCLUB and Cargo Incident Notification to make the necessary adjustments to this old booklet. Put these amendments in the website as they come in.
6) Dedicate a special part to cargo that can cause fire on board ships.

Then carriers could start requesting legal statements signed by a responsible person of the Shipper, that those who are responsible for the stowage of their cargoes, have read the IMO advices for the types of cargoes they are shipping.

I myself have written a book in Spanish in 2000, called Containers, Ships and Ports, parts of a Transport System, in which special attention has been paid to this subject. The full text is free available on http://www.antonioz.com.ar and probably deserves a link in the proposed IMO-website.

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