I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions how to safely remove damaged pallets or unstable loads from the higher levels on pallet racking.

Following a recent merge of businesses I am working on a site that store pallets on pallet racking (up to 6 shelves high). The pallets tend to contain up to 40 A4 cardboard boxes containing documents that are then securely shrink wrapped. It is part of our risk assessment and safe system of work for only appropriate pallets to be used that are in a good condition and for all loads to be stacked correcltly and be secure; however we do have occasions where damaged pallets have been located on the upper shelves or where loads have become unstable due to the boxes breaking, getting crushed or boxes being removed over time due to client requests.

Historically the site managers have hired in scissor lifts (PPE provided and all staff have been trained in their use, but their refreshers are coming up) to restack or decant the pallet. I am just wondering if anyone has anyone got experiance of having to deal with a similar hazard and what has been put in place to deal with it as safely as possible.

Thank you for any assistance in advance.

Hi Louise,

Do you use FLT's or Reach Trucks if so the only real options with racking that high is use of a Scissor Lift or Man Safe Cage to destack the pallet. 

If you use VNA's these can be used altough there is sometimes a risk of people getting out of the truck an into the racking,

If boxed document storage is a normal business activity have you considered the use of heavy duty pallet bins?

No affiliation with the company on the link provided purely for visualisation purposes

http://www.solentplastics.co.uk/pallet-boxes-bulk-storage-containers/product/KLK1210/900-litre-folding-pallet-box-bulk-storage-container-with-side-opening-flaps-on-4-feet/

More robust than standard pallets

Hi Louise, This is something that happened to us at our site where we spotted a plastic pallet 4 high with a split thus resulting in sinkage at one side. We stored film on the pallet weighting 13kg each roll. We managed to put the boom lift up for inspection and used the forktruck to remove the damaged pallet. The operator in the boom lift guided the forktruck operators forks into the pallet at a tilt and lift to safely take the pallet down. We did remove the pallets to the side of the broken pallet to allow the spotter to see clearly. We also used the rackit company to come on site for guidance and they advised an option of removing one side of the racking to allow the boom lift in closer if we had to remove film manually. Film was shrink wrapped with potential of overspill if cut open. We now have a procedure where outside supplied pallets are visually inspected on ground level , then placed onto level 1 of the racking for underneath inspection before placing to higher levels. You may wish to consider adding this to your procedures.