Pallets Preferred To Containers

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31349, 20 April 1967, Page 28

Pallets Preferred To Containers

The chairman of the Dairy Board (Sir Andrew Linton) favours the use of pallets rather than containers to facilitate cargo handling in New Zealand.

At the Christchurch ward meeting of the board he said that if containers were brought in the costs would be fantastic.

Many dairy companies were away from the coast and how would containers of 50 tons capacity be handled? Would highways be broken up with these 50 ton loads or would they be put on a flat deck? If containers were used they should be left on the wharves and 20 or 50 pallets could be put into a container using fork-lift trucks, he said. Costly derricks were needed to handle them and to get them into a ship the hatch had to be widened and the ship had to have equipment to handle them.

Sir Andrew Linton advised pallets of one or two tons. These could make a substantial contribution to cargo handling. He said he had asked shipping companies when containers would come in. They had said 15 to 16 years. New Zealand could not wait as long as that. The cost of cargo handling on the wharves was important to all export industries, said Sir Andrew Linton. In the last year ships had spent longer on the coast than they had in the previous period. He had suggested to the Minister of Transport (Mr Gordon) that an independent inquiry should be made into cargo handling at ports.

THE PRACTICAL APPROACH TO SELLING OR BUYING WITH SATISFYING RESULTS IS THROUGH CLASSIFIEDS. "THE PRESS" CARRIES YOUR MESSAGE EARLY TO MORE THAN SS.SM FAMILIES IN CITY, SUBURBS AND COUNTRY.