OVERWEIGHT bales are becoming a bigger problem in Australia’s wool industry as growers try to cut down on freight and bale handling changes.
General manager for AWH Pty Ltd in Victoria, David Brierly, said the agreed industry standard for wool bales was 110 to 204 kilograms, but some growers were pressing bales as heavy as 225kg to 230kg.
In the 2009-10 season (July 2009 to March 2010) AWH nationally handled about 15,000 overweight bales, but during July 2010 to March 2011 this increased 13 per cent to about 17,000 bales.
In Victoria, the percentage increase in overweight bales handled by AWH for the same period was similar, from about 3600 to 4100 bales.
Similar problems with overweight bales occurred in other States, Mr Brierly said.
AWH handles the bales sold by major brokers, Elders, Landmark, Australian Wool Network and Arcadian Wool Brokers.
Overweight bales must have their weight adjusted by removing wool to be put into another lighter bale in the same line or put into a bulk class line for sale.
This meant manual handling of heavy bales, representing an occupational health and safety risk to warehouse workers.
Every overweight bale could cost growers $20 to $30, for the sake of trying to save the cost of an extra $15 wool pack in a line, Mr Brierly said.
“You could quite easily achieve some false economies if you are pressing up too high to the limit,” he said.
“You might be saving yourself one wool pack and one bale in freight, but your $15 could be costing you $30.”
Overweight bales were also causing problems with dumping equipment designed decades ago to handle lighter bales, Mr Brierly said.
Mr Brierly said growers needed to calibrate their shed scales and not press too heavy.
Southern Wool Warehousing store manager, Brian Vagg, said one worker had to spend a minimum of 1.5 days a week on overweight bales – more than double the time allocated four years ago.
“A lot of the clips are repeat offenders.”
Underweight bales were also a problem, but his store had handled one 90-bale clip with 60 overweight bales, some weighing 224kg 255kg.
Mr Vagg believed lack of experienced wool shed staff was a contributing factor, with the growers not levelling their presses fitted with scales and the staff not retaring the press scales between bales.
The weight on at least every tenth bale should be checked with an independent platform scale, he said.
Australian Wool Network wool marketing consultant, Maurice Jolly, said most press-fitted scales appeared to be inaccurate.
Old platform scales were the most accurate and some growers had mounted their presses on independent weight bars, he said.
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