Things to NOT haul in your food grade dry van?

Scrap bales in a van. Only did one load, never again

 

My first company had a contract to bring raw animal hides to a tannery in the same city as the trucking company. After delivery the trailers were "smoke bombed" closed and sat at the customer several days until the fats were congealed and the smell of the smoke replaced the smell of hides.

I've carried cubes of scrap metal where blocking was nailed to the floor of dry vans and it required pulling lots of nails out of the trailer afterwards, not just bending the nails over. I've carried metal powders in giant bags placed on pallets. I don't recall problems after getting empty. I think those loads just required extra caution to avoid hard braking or sharp turns so the bags stayed on the pallets. Most truck washes will wash out a dry van or reefer if needed.

 

Carbon black

 

Fish oil in totes. I don't care what we did, they always leaked and even a small leak will stink up a trailer.
Same with brined cherries in wooden bins. They don't smell too bad but getting the sugar/brine mix out of your trailer will take a while.

 

YES !

 

1. Potatoes. Maybe for some, not for me with a wood floor dry van.
2. Baled scrap plastic. Smells like the landfill in the summer.
3. You know the little paper/cardboard coasters you get at a restaurant or bar? I once hauled a load of scrap from a place that made them. They shredded them in to little bits about the size of a fingernail and baled them sort of and loaded me top to bottom with them. Years later they are still rattling loose from the E-track and other crevices in my trailer.

 

Sun flower seed shells. Just the shells. We hauled them in grain hoppers and you wouldn't think there could be any place to hide. We were picking shells out of the trailers for a month.
While our truck was loading a reefer came in and they were going to load him in bulk. I'll bet that was interesting.

 

Bales of garbage

 

I did carbon black too.
Worse one for me was watermelons. Dry van trailer was vented. But they loaded right off the field at 104 degrees outside Tucson and I took them up to Calgary. After unloading, all the juices that leaked out from some damaged ones dried and smelled like dead pigs.