4 reasons why you need to get third party scale tickets to ship scrap plastic

The plastic recycling industry is about efficiently sourcing and shipping scrap plastic in reliable quality standards and consistent quantities. Part of the scrap plastic trading equation involves knowing your product, building relationships with trustworthy suppliers and maintaining solid logistics to deliver the product where it needs to be.

The other side of the equation is plastic scrap shipping. Most scrap plastic traders don’t expect to be experts in the various details of the shipping business, but if you want your scrap plastic transactions to proceed smoothly, it helps to know the “rules of the road” for scrap plastic shipments.

One of the most important aspects of shipping scrap plastic via over the road freight is handling scale tickets. Scale tickets are used to keep track of the weight of a truck’s contents, so that both the scrap plastic buyers and sellers can have an accurate reading of the weight of the scrap plastic material in the truck.

While it’s possible for either the buyer or seller to weigh the scrap plastic material, the best way to ensure a fair and efficient transaction to get third party scale tickets.

Here are a few reasons why third party scale tickets are the best way to measure the weight of scrap plastic shipments:

• Accuracy: Scale tickets are provided as heavy weight / light weight, and give the weight of the truck loaded vs. empty. When you use third party scale tickets, this shows that you are getting an accurate weight. Especially for scrap plastic brokers and traders like Blackbridge Investments, if buyers and sellers have different measurements for the exact weight of a truck full of plastic scrap, it’s important for brokers to not take the buyer’s side or the supplier’s side. Instead, third party scale tickets allows the scrap plastic trader to add value to the deal (in part) by calculating the true weight of the truck.
• Industry standards: CAT Scale tickets are widely viewed as some of the most accurate and reliable scale tickets in the shipping industry. CAT Scales offer a unique guarantee where if a truck driver gets ticketed for having an overweight truck, CAT will check their scale. If the weight was wrongly calculated, CAT will pay the trucker’s fine. And if the scale is accurate, CAT will back up the trucker in court. Whenever possible, try to use CAT Scale tickets.
• Ensuring a fair deal: Scrap plastic buyers and suppliers might offer their own weight calculations, but these numbers might be less than accurate. CAT scale tickets are the gold standard in the shipping business. If CAT tickets are not going to be provided, make sure that the buyer and seller give written permission to use a scale that is already at the buyer or seller’s location. All parties need sign off on using this scale, as agreement on the material weight can be the difference between profit and loss.
• Sort out multiple material types: A typical scrap plastic shipment might contain mixed bales of scrap plastic or multiple varieties of scrap plastic per truck. In this situation, you can get individual tickets for product types to properly identify the breakdown from the packing list. If individual scale tickets are not available for each product type, you can get a bale weight and then use the ratio from the packing list to determine the breakdown of material weights.

Without accurate scale tickets to measure the proper weight you may be overpaying or getting underpaid on the value of the scrap plastic material. Using third party scale tickets is one of the best ways to ensure an efficient transaction by protecting the interests of both parties to the deal. It’s another way to show that you’re a reputable scrap plastic trading partner.