PET Strap Manufacturer & Supplier

The problem PET strap was invented to solve

A loaded pallet is not a rigid object. It settles. Cartons compress, contents shift down, and the stack loses a few millimetres of height in the first hours of transit. Steel strap does not follow that movement: it was tensioned against a taller stack, and once the stack is shorter the strap is simply loose. A loose strap is a load that can move, and a load that can move is the one that arrives damaged.

Polyester strap has elastic recovery. It stretches slightly under tension and pulls back as the load settles, so it is still doing its job on day three of a container journey. That single property is why most palletised freight moved away from steel, and it matters more the longer the lane is.

The three other reasons

Safety at the receiving end

Steel strap under tension is stored energy, and cutting it is the most common packaging-related injury on a receiving dock. PET is cut with a hand tool and does not spring.

It does not rust onto the goods

In a humid container, steel rusts, and it rusts against whatever it is touching. On painted, plated or coated surfaces the mark is permanent and the item is a reject even though nothing structural happened to it.

Weight and cost

Per metre of equivalent break strength, PET is lighter and cheaper. On volume strapping lines that shows up as a real number in the annual consumables budget, not a rounding difference.

Specifying it properly

Width is the number everybody quotes and the wrong place to start. The right order is: what does the pallet weigh, how is it being strapped, and what tool is doing the tensioning. Break strength requirement follows from the first, and the width and grade that meet that requirement have to be compatible with the second and third. A width your tool cannot tension properly is worse than a narrower width it can.

Break strength is a safety figure, so we publish it only where we have a tested number: the 12 x 0.70 mm strap in the table above. For every other width, tested figures are being confirmed with production, and until then the rating for the width you need goes on your quote rather than on a web page.

Strap and board together

Strapping and corner protection are one system, not two purchases. Tension the strap hard enough to hold the load and, without a board under it, you crush the top carton. Tension it softly enough not to crush anything and the load moves. Angle board is what lets you do the first thing without the consequence — which is why the two arrive on the same order from us more often than not.

One practical note for your accounts team: the strap sits under a plastics HSN heading and the board under a paper one. Two codes on one invoice is correct, and we set out both on our HSN and GST reference pages.