Magazine Category: Thoughts

When less is more: how right-sizing desiccants cuts waste and cost

When you’re trying to protect cargo from moisture, using extra protection seems safer. More desiccants, more grams, more layers. But here’s the catch: overdoing it can quietly add cost, weight, and waste to every shipment. At Absortech, we run into this often: a shipment arrives with desiccants tucked into every available corner—triple-dosed, taped on crates, […]

Make packaging even more sustainable with plastic-free desiccants

Many companies and brands are looking to reduce or eliminate plastic in their packaging. Sometimes it’s just a question of doing what’s better for the environment, but increasingly it’s also because customers, consumers and regulators demand it. We’ve got you covered – AbsorTerra is a plastic-free in-box desiccant you can turn to and trust. Over […]

Reaching new heights: Safely & efficiently placing desiccants

Yellow helmet on a ladder

Q: What do you get if you put a container, a short person, and a hanging desiccant together? A:  An overly stretched installation procedure. Whether hanging vertically or lying horizontally, installing desiccants in a container should be safe and easy. But you guessed it, the seemingly simple act of reaching high-lashing rings to attach hanging […]

No, it’s not a UFO! It’s a UFI (unique formula identifier)

Don’t worry, we’re here to keep you updated! Spotted an unfamiliar code on certain product labels recently? Don’t worry, it’s not an alien secret code but rather an essential new addition to ensure your safety, known as the Unique Formula Identifier (UFI). Since 2021, the UFI, a 16-character code, has been gradually becoming a mandatory […]

How to protect goods against corrosion

A gray bolt and rusty brown nut on a green metal wall

Plus AbsorGel® vs. VCI: an environmental and cost comparison When you ship metal goods and components, corrosion is your worst enemy. And it costs —damaged cargo must be re-worked or even scrapped, costing precious time and money throughout the supply chain and weakening supplier trust. Not to mention, adding to the burden on the planet […]

The monsoon is coming… let’s make it the driest ever

An umbrella under heavy rain

If you live in Sweden, then June to September is a time of summer skies and sunshine. That’s the fantasy anyway after the cold, often dark months of October all the way to May. But at Absortech, even with many of us based in Sweden, these months mean one thing … monsoon season! The shipping […]

The shipping crisis – Let’s absorb the risk

Container shortages, increased costs, congested ports, delays … the pandemic has put untold pressure on traders, shippers, planners and the customers and supply chains that rely on them. What’s more, it looks like we won’t be getting back to normal until mid-2022. Unfortunately, there is no magic pill to remove these headaches. But there is […]

Slow, wet and cheap is the best way to ship electronics

Electronic goods are usually shipped by air. This way the products are kept dry, but air freight is both expensive and unsustainable. And the world can no longer afford to be unsustainable. Behind choosing air freight to ship electronics lies their vulnerability to moisture. The alternative has been to ship products like computers, smartphones, and […]

What happened to the blue collector of Absorpole®? 

Absorpole® has protected products from moisture damage since 1996. The virgin plastic collector that keeps the absorbed moisture has been blue ever since. Until now, that is. The reason for this change is that blue is not the natural colour of virgin plastic. It’s transparent, but for brand and design purposes, it’s often coloured with […]

Summary 2020

This has been a challenging year for all of us. To handle an unpredictable Pandemic is not something we are used to. Bearing that in mind, we are equally proud and humble nothing that Absortech’s growth has continued for yet another year. I would sincerely like to thank partners, customers, suppliers and our own terrific […]

The price per desiccant bag is irrelevant

Before you make a choice of a new supplier of a product or service, you want to compare different offers. It is a rational thing to do, as it gives you a better picture of what your money can buy you. The important thing is how you compare. Under some circumstances, the obvious comparison may […]

If things only were simple…

Then you could just compare the price of different moisture absorbers and choose the cheapest one. There, done! That would most likely mean we would have a hard time because our desiccant bags aren’t the cheapest on the market. Yet, we’re growing quickly. So how does that add up? Let’s start with calcium chloride. It’s […]

Let’s zoom out for a sec

We want simple answers. It’s just the way we are wired as humans. But it becomes a problem when we stare ourselves blind on a small part of a complex chain of events and try to solve that single issue. It’s like mopping up water from a leak instead of fixing the actual leak. This […]

Take charge

An empty shipping container contains 2 to 4 liters of water under normal conditions. Around another 15 liters or more are often added when the container is loaded with goods. If you’re not careful, an additional 50 liters (or much more) may be accidentally added via the packaging material and a wet container floor. Top […]

Where the €/&#§% is my shipment?

It’s easy to understand that a damaged client relationship is costly. But it’s difficult to know exactly how much it costs. It becomes simpler to calculate if your client decides to leave you for someone else. One lost shipment may not be enough for that to happen. But a couple might. So how do you […]

Breaking myths: How time caught up with VCI

There are lots of misconceptions about moisture protection. Sadly, these myths are stubborn. One of the most persistent ones is the notion that Volatile Corrosion Inhibitors (VCI) is the best way to protect metal shipments from rust. They’re not. Why you should take our word for it? Well, we thought you’d think that. So we […]

We don’t talk about that

When we’re faced with problems we can’t fix, denial is a common reaction. It’s no fun thinking about things you can’t do anything about. Denial does, however, become problematic when we’re wrong. With moisture damage in shipping, that’s often the case. Companies think there’s little to do and so they do little (or nothing) to […]

Scrap it and send another

It’s becoming difficult to deny climate change. We all have to do our part in order to slow down the negative effects on the environment. At the same time, the global economy is a fine tuned machine with millions of bits and pieces moving and interacting in harmony. You have to be delicate when you […]

Responsibility

How do you fix a problem no-one is responsible for? Sometimes even in big, well-run companies, things fall in-between the cracks. Moisture damage is such a problem: known by few, owned by no-one. The chances of solving the problem aren’t great under those conditions. A problem that costs such a vast amount of money (50 […]

Moisturegate

The annual cost of waste due to moisture damage in shipments exceeds 50 billion dollars*. Few companies have an idea of how much money they lose due to moisture damage to their shipments. Most don’t know they lose money to this problem at all. Why? Well, one reason is the lack of communication. Bad news […]

Natural is best

Outperforming the competition is not enough We can help you get rid of expensive moisture damages to your shipments. And we do it well – our desiccants outperform traditional alternatives. To a significant lower total cost. But that’s not enough, as there are important additional regards to take into account. The desiccants you get when […]

Speed is key

It’s easy to get your eyes stuck on just one part of a complex system. This applies to fighting moisture damage to shipments. There’s more to it than absorption factor and cost per desiccant. Manual labour needed to install the desiccants, for example. When you go with us, you need less desiccants per container, because […]

The real cost of a delay

It might not seem like a big deal when a container is damaged. It usually is, however. Today, many companies rely on shipments arriving just in time. When they don’t, production may be delayed. Sometimes, even completely stalled. That’s rarely good for business. The cost of that is difficult to calculate, but it’s most certainly […]