As a manufacturer or distributor, shipping your products overseas can be crucial to your business. However, it’s important to be aware of the potential risks that can arise during transportation.
This blog explores the factors contributing to corrosion during overseas shipping, the best corrosion prevention solutions, and how Protective Packaging can help keep your products safe at every step.
What Is Corrosion and Why Is It Important to Prevent During Shipping?
Corrosion is a chemical reaction that occurs when metal is exposed to moisture and other environmental factors. The resulting damage can lead to various problems, including reduced product life span and durability, safety hazards, and financial losses.
Corrosion can have a devastating impact on metal parts if your product is not properly managed from point A to point B. When shipping products overseas, the risk of corrosion can be even higher due to factors unaccounted for prior to shipping.
Factors That Contribute to Corrosion During Overseas Shipping
Product handling is an often-overlooked step during the transportation process. When a product leaves your facility, quality control and protection fall to several individuals on the way to its destination. Moving the product from the warehouse to the dock, loading, transportation time, offloading, and to its destination requires many hands and various equipment, therefore putting the product at risk for damage at every step.
Witnessing first hand while traveling on and below deck with all types of cargo, untrained and/or careless logistics crews main concern is getting from point A to point B, not necessarily the state of which the product is in when it leaves your docks. Your equipment needs to be protected by effective packaging to ensure product integrity.
Understanding these obstacles can save time, quality, and ultimately client relations. Protective Packaging’s decades of following and preparing international shipments can be the resource you didn’t know was available. What you don’t know can be costly.
Products transported by ship face a higher risk of corrosion due to several factors:
- Humidity and moisture levels
- Saltwater exposure
- Greenhouse effect
- Damage while in storage or transport
- Customs abuse
In addition to common environmental factors, the risk of damage can also come from other variables:
- Placement on or below the deck
- Weather/waves
- Lack of supervision
- Blind trust in transportation stewards
- Customs
It’s crucial that your product is handled with care, as any impact or rough treatment can cause damage to the packaging that can lead to possible corrosion.
Corrosion Prevention Solutions for Overseas Shipping
Several corrosion prevention solutions are available to help protect your products. Volatile corrosion inhibitors (VCI) technology releases a vapor that forms a protective layer around the metal product. Other solutions include moisture barrier bags and/or crate or cardboard liners to seal out moisture.
Mil-Spec clear film windows are also a great choice when shipping overseas, as they allow customs to see the contents without cutting through the bag, compromising its integrity.
Protective Packaging often recommends a combination of options for the greatest effectiveness, like adding desiccant or VCI to repel moisture and using a digital hydrometer to measure humidity levels. We also suggest security tamper-evident tape and take a picture of every product before it leaves our warehouse.
How Protective Packaging Can Help
We have years of expertise in customizing solutions for specific needs at Protective Packaging. We offer a range of products and services to help prevent corrosion during overseas shipping.
Because international shipping has rightfully earned the reputation all shippers fear, Protective Packaging can pull from a combined 75+ years of experience and hundreds of thousands of miles in travel with every type of packaging solutions in order to quell those concerns and offer a myriad of solutions specific to your freight’s needs.
Protective Packaging has a range of corrosion prevention solutions to keep your products safe during transportation. With our help, you can have peace of mind knowing that your products are safe as they travel from point A to point B in the worst conditions on the planet. Contact us today for expert guidance on preventing corrosion during overseas shipping.