What’s the point of a seal?

How much did it pay to haul wood? And how much did the wood cost?

Take all the environmental reasons out - recycling cardboard makes fiscal sense. The money Westrock saves in timber rights alone is enough for them to want a recycling system in place.

Now plastic - that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

The seal is there, to protect you. Treat it like a theft indicator as homeskillet points out. Seal numbers that don't match on an inspection, may indicate that you have helped yourself to product, sold it...etc. The point of the seal is that when you got loaded, and that seal was on the door, it's the only proof that the load regardless of content, was not tampered with. It's your proof, and most guard gates makes you take it off there for them to watch you take it off so they can inspect it and make sure it matches. That's why. It only takes once to villify you.

 

Your or the company's insurance. And they won't be happy.

 

What is a seal doing in the trailer? Did you give him food and water ?

Sincerely

Concerned flatbedders.

 

Seal is often a serious requirement by brokers/shippers/receivers.
It might be more often than not that they hand you one to seal it yourself and the receiver tells you to break it and throw it in the back. But there are occasions when they do check it and would refuse the load if you were missing one. Also, it is of quite an importance to have some sort of acknowledgment that you arrived with the seal intact whether they check it or not at the receiver, in case of any cargo shortages, overages, misplaces orders etc. and as a consequence they would make such notes on the BOL.
I recommend that you take a picture of the sealed trailer latch at the shipper before they tell you to break it and throw it in the back, or even better make a short video depicting the process and surrounding area showing that you are at their facility about to back into a dock.
P.S. Technically, they should always come out and verify it but good luck insisting on it every time you deliver a sealed trailer...therefore short video or at least some sort of a meaningful picture would be some alternative.

 

Plastic makes all kinds of sense. At least to me it did. One of my trucks hauled a couple of loads a month of recycled plastic prills from Milton, On to Richmond, Bc. Paid pretty good money, that truck hauled it for 3yrs. The scrap paper that I hauled was for drywall. A train load of that paper from Thorold to Vancouver paid about the same as a van load of plastic. Then again hauling drywall pays 4/5ths of #### all too so maybe it’s just that industry.

 

Plastic recycling is a huge fraud. I still do it but I was disappointed after learning the truth.

 

For almost all my dry van runs, the seal is only useful to the shipper and for myself for when I stop. I rarely have a consignee check it. Almost never. One place requests you bring it inside just to have you put it into a “special” garbage can. They don’t even look at it.

 

I hauled 40,000 lbs of used copper out west for a recyler,they put a high security seal on that load