WHAT ARE HEAT TREAT PALLETS AND WHY DO PALLETS NEED TO BE HEAT TREATED ?
Heat treat pallets are required for all wood packaging material used in international shipments.
One
of the necessary steps for ensuring the safety of not only the product being shipped, but also the
environment of the product’s destination, is heat treatment.
Wood pallets are made from organic material – trees.
Trees do not grow in sterile surroundings. The
ground they are rooted in, the air they are surrounded by, and the water they absorb are not only full
of nourishing material, but also a plethora of pests.
These pests, whether mature or in larval stage, are,
unfortunately, all too easily transported from one area of the world to another in the pallet wood they
inhabit.
Therefore governments, environmentalists, and pallet makers have come up with a variety of
ways to kill them, during the pallet production stage, so they will not be introduced, in places they did
not originate and do not belong to.
WHAT IS HEAT TREATMENT EXACTLY ?
It’s a phyto-sanitary process developed by the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC), a
treaty recognized by the World Trade Organization and overseen by the Food and Agriculture
Organization that “ aims to secure coordinated, effective action to prevent and to control the
introduction and spread of pests of plants and plant products .
During this process, the pallets, boxes, or crates being treated are heated to a core temperature of 56
degrees for a minimum of 30 minutes. This ensures that all insects and larva will be killed, after which
the pallet can be used and reused to ship goods internationally. Once a pallet has been heat treated, it
is stamped with a globally recognized image which allows for more efficient transportation of goods.
Om Timber Mart is certified to perform the heat treatment process necessary to be in compliance with
ISPM-15, or International Standards for Phyto-sanitary Measures No. 15 . Our plants have the capacity
to produce large numbers of heat treated pallets for our clients.
Om Timber Mart is committed to doing our part in ensuring the supply of safe and sanitary pallets for
the use of our customers, and we have the ability to produce heat treated pallets in large numbers as
necessary. If your company has a need for heat treated pallets in whatever numbers, please contact
us and we can discuss how we can meet this need together.
