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 simply don’t travel well in an organisation whipped to increase profits. The full scope of moisture damage rarely reaches executives with the power to do something about it.

Another hurdle is that the issue isn’t owned by anyone in particular. Without clear responsibility, the cost keeps weighing heavy on profits. But nobody cares, because nobody knows. As a result, a lot of money goes down the drain.

To make matters worse, in most cases where there is both knowledge and someone responsible, little is done all the same. This is due to the view that little can be done anyway.

That is not true. But it’s understandable that notion has spread.

Historically, there have been different solutions to avoid moisture damage to shipped goods.

Clay, silica gel, VCI, biocides and increasing the thickness of the cardboard packaging are methods that have been used throughout the years. But they have their challenges, spreading from efficiency, amount needed and installation time and cost.

The efficiency of these desiccants can (and should) also be rated by their absorption factor. This is measured by comparing to that of silica gel (the most commonly used desiccant today) which is 1.0 in certain environments (depending on the conditions in which the absorption factor has been measured) the same as the absorption factor of clay. Cardboard has a factor of 0.2 and the most effective traditional desiccant, clay boosted with calcium chloride, reaches 1.6.

Our calcium chloride-based solution has an absorption factor of 10-12. In addition to outperforming all other options by miles, it’s environmentally safe and fast and simple to install in a container. The fact that you only need 10% of the equivalent amount of clay or silica gel, makes our products faster to install and limits plastic used to a minimum.

Is all this new to you? Well, that’s a good sign. It probably is to more people in your organisation, but now you have good reason to look into it.

And hopefully save your company a fair amount of money.

*Marine Insurance Association, Sweden, Global Trade Report 2012

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