202549 A rolling roll

As edited from Port Skills & Safety Alert No: SA-006-2024

A general cargo vessel was in port and discharging rolls of paper. The rolls were chocked with polystyrene packing, and at one point during the discharge one of the rolls toppled. The roll was 1.4 metres in diameter, 2.2 metres high and weighed 2.6 tonnes. Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident.

It is likely that the polystyrene chocking was used to raise the height of the roll in the layer, allowing another layer of rolls to be stacked on top.

Lessons learned

• Polystyrene is not a suitable material to be used as weight bearing dunnage. Only robust weight bearing materials should be used for dunnage.
• Good awareness from the stevedores prevented a more serious incident. Awareness of dangers is everyone’s responsibility.