Regulatory requirements for wood packing material
The United Nation’s Nation’s International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPM) No. 15 have been set up to prevent the spread of pests across international borders and are being implemented and enforced by national regulations world wide.
The European Union has implemented these standards on March 2005, the US will implement and enforce them by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the US Department of Agriculture as of September 16, 2005.
For all those who use wood packaging material such as dunnage, crating, pallets, packaging blocks, drums, cases and skids for their import and export shipments, complying with the standards will avoid delays and shipments from being held at customs or returned at the port of arrival at the importers expense.
All Wood Packaging Materials that are used in supporting, protecting or carrying a commodity MUST either be heat treated or subjected to Methyl Bromide Fumigation. This is to eliminate any pest that my reside in the wood. Evidence of these treatments is by means of stamped IPPC markings on at least two opposing sides of the wood packaging material.
Exceptions:
These requirements do not apply to raw wood of 6mm or 0,24 inches thickness or less, and wood packaging material constructed entirely from processed wood produced by glue, heat and pressure, or a combination thereof like eg plywood, oriented strand board, particle board, etc.
These requirements do not apply for transports between the European Union and Switzerland.
Treatment
a) Heat Treatment (HT)
Wood packaging material should be heated in accordance with a specific time-temperature schedule that achieves a minimum wood core temperature of 56°C for a minimum of 30 minutes.
(b) Methyl Bromide (MB) Fumigation
The wood packaging material should be fumigated with methyl bromide gas. The minimum standard is as follows:
Temperature |
Dosage rate (g/m3) |
Minimum Methyl Bromide gas concentration (g/m3) at: |
|||
|
0.5 hrs |
2 hrs |
4 hrs |
16 hrs |
||
|
21°C or above |
48 |
36 |
24 |
17 |
14 |
|
16°C or above |
56 |
42 |
28 |
20 |
17 |
|
11°C or above |
64 |
48 |
32 |
22 |
19 |
The minimum temperature should not be less than 10°C and the minimum exposure time should be 16 hours.
MARKING
Wood packaging material must be marked with the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) logo and two letter ISO code for the country that treated the wood packaging material. The marking must also include the unique number assigned by the national plant protection organization to the company responsible for ensuring the wood packaging material was properly treated, and either the abbreviation HT (heat treatment) or MB (methyl bromide). Paper treatment certification will no longer be required.
The marking required on the wood packaging material must be:
- Placed in a visible location on each article, preferably on at least two opposite sides of the article;
- Legible and permanent and it must indicate that the article has been treated as required;
- Approved by the IPPC to certify that the wood packaging material has been subjected to an approved measure.
The format of the marking is shown below:
The current regulations do not prohibit the recycling or re-use of compliant wood packaging material as long as it is not refurbished or repaired by replacing one or some part of it with non-treated wood.
Other useful links:
https://www.ippc.int/IPP/En/default.jsp