Packaging expert: Styrofoam not best for shipping furniture
By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, April 27, 2008
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. — Styrofoam makes an excellent coffee cup, but it's a poor packing material for furniture being shipped from Asia, an executive for a major packaging company said here.
Speaking at the annual conference of the International Furniture Transportation and Logistics Council, Connie Hardy-Jones of Multi-Wall Packaging said Styrofoam should be avoided when shipping furniture because it easily breaks down after the cartons are removed from shipping containers.
"It gets (to the U.S.) fine because it's coming in full container loads," she told the group. "The damage occurs because it's moved up to 10 times before it ever gets on the delivery truck."
In addition, Hardy-Jones said Styrofoam doesn't always withstand stacking on warehouse racks, which can be another source of damage.
Using photos of damaged furniture cartons as a backdrop, she urged manufacturers and retailers to include packaging as part of their quality control programs, and said they should perform pre-shipment testing on any packaging.
Some major retailers, including Havertys and Slumberland, already require such testing because they make heavy use of container-direct programs, she told the group.
Hardy-Jones said corrugated and fiberfill packaging generally holds up better than other packing materials, and said if producers continue to insist on using Styrofoam, they should glue pieces of corrugated material to the back of it to increase its strength and durability.
"With some of the inferior packaging we're seeing, the package fails before the piece fails," she said.
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