Solid Wood Packing Regulations
Unmanufactured wood articles and products imported into the U.S. can pose a significant hazard of introducing plant pest and pathogens to our environment.
Regulations restrict the importation of many types of wood articles including wooden packaging materials such as pallets, crates, boxes and pieces of wood used on bracing and separating cargo. Importations of SWPM have been linked to the introduction into the U.S of such pest as the Asian Long horned beetle and the pine shoot beetle which pose serious risk to our agriculture, in many cities thousands of trees are removed each year in an attempt to eradicate these pest. (Tweet, tweet?)
The guidelines and regulations for the importation of wood packing materials that was approved by the Interim Commission on Phytosanitary measures of the International Plant Protection convention on March 15, 2002 call for wood packing materials to be heat treated or fumigated with methyl bromide in accordance with the guidelines and marked with an approved international mark to certify the wood was treated.
Wood packaging materials should have visible marked as per the final rule published in the Federal Register on Sept. 16, 2004:
“(2) Marking. The wood packaging material must be marked in a visible location on each article, preferably on at least two opposite sides of the article, with a legible and permanent mark that indicates that the article meets the requirements of this paragraph. The mark must be approved by the International Plant Protection Convention in its International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures to certify that wood packaging material has been subjected to an approved measure, and must include a unique graphic symbol, the ISO two-letter country code for the country that produced the wood packaging material, a unique number assigned by the national plant protection agency of that country to the producer of the wood packaging material, and an abbreviation disclosing the type of treatment (e.g., HT for heat treatment or MB for methyl bromide fumigation). The currently approved format for the mark is as follows, where XX would be replaced by the country code, 000 by the producer number, and YY by the treatment type (HT or MB): “
(Federal Register /Vol. 69, No. 179 /Thursday, September 16, 2004 /Rules and Regulations 55733)
