Safety Tips For Handling Drums

Drum handling is one of the activities that will be carried out in a warehouse. But this is quite a tricky operation and you need to know how to do it correctly. You will need some specialised equipment and certain techniques that are used for the handling of drums so that no accidents take place and no damages are suffered by the warehouse. 

Naturally, given the cylindrical shape of the drum, manually moving them from one place to another can be quite difficult. You will not be able to have a strong grip of the drum. Frequent manual handling will result in damaged knees, strained muscles, injured backs etc. You need to think about the safety of your employees and how their task can be made easier. You can purchase drum handling equipment from a reputed supplier so that you can make the workplace safer and more efficient. These suppliers will provide a larger range of equipment such as forklift attachments, crane attachments, trolleys and trucks to facilitate better manual handling and man cage for sale. The supplier you go to have to be a reputed seller with quality equipment. If you purchase poor equipment, your employees may suffer and the contents of the drums will be prone to damage as well. For example, if the pallet puller you purchase is of lower quality, they can break unexpectedly and cause damage to the contents attached to it. It is never a good idea to roll on or roll off a drum.

This is a very unsafe practice and this can crush hands or feet of the workmen handling it. Instead, you can use forklifts for a safer and more efficient handling. These equipment can make drum handling a much safer process than it was before. But when you’re moving them using a forklift, you have to secure the drums to the forklift first. This is because the cylindrical shape of the drum can be quite unstable and if the forklift stops suddenly, they have a higher chance of falling off and injuring someone around. If the drums are moved on a pallet, you should shrink wrap them so that they hold steady and don’t fall off. But you need to inspect the pallets before you use them. If they are cracked or chipped, it can be a safety risk. In this instance, the pallets can buckle under the combined weight of the drums or if there are any broken points in the pallet, they can damage the drums while they are being transported. You need to be very aware of what the contents in the drum are so that you follow the proper security protocols.