Regulations in bulk material transport — TDT, ADR, ISO on SMIALA – Big-Bag Transloading & Repackaging | PHS Magnum Poland

REACH — the chemicals regulation and bulk material transport

Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

REACH is Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council — the cornerstone of EU chemicals law. The name is an acronym of its four pillars: Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of chemical substances (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals). The system is overseen by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), based in Helsinki. In practice REACH answers a simple question: who may place what, and how much of it, on the EU market, and what hazard information must travel with the goods through the entire supply chain.

Food Contact Materials 1935/2004 — food grade granulate and Declaration of Conformity

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

Food contact materials (FCM) are materials and articles intended to come into contact with food, subject to the framework Regulation (EC) 1935/2004 and, in the case of plastics, additionally to the specific Regulation (EU) 10/2011. Food grade polymer granulate — so-called food grade — is an intermediate product that must be accompanied by a Declaration of Conformity (DoC) at every stage of the supply chain.

In terminal practice we deal with this topic constantly, because an ever-larger share of the granulate we transload — mainly PET, polyethylene and polypropylene — is intended for the production of food packaging: bottles, films, containers, closures. The terminal itself does not issue the Declaration of Conformity and is not responsible for the chemical composition of the plastic. It is responsible for something equally important: ensuring that material that entered the yard as food grade leaves it with its status intact — without contamination, with traceability preserved and a clean tank. That is precisely our role within the whole system.

PPWR and recyclates — new EU requirements for packaging and what they mean for granulates

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

PPWR (the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation) is Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste. It sets mandatory minimum shares of recyclate recovered from post-consumer waste, as well as recyclability requirements for packaging placed on the European Union market. It entered into force on 11 February 2025, and as a regulation it applies directly in all Member States from 12 August 2026 — without any need for transposition into national law.

TDT Inspection of Silo Tankers — Periodic Pressure Vessel Inspections and Intervals

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

A TDT inspection of a silo tanker is a periodic technical inspection of the tanker’s pressure vessel, carried out by the Transport Technical Supervision authority (TDT, Polish: Transportowy Dozór Techniczny), which is the condition for legally authorising the vehicle to operate and to carry loose bulk material.

For a terminal user it comes down to a single rule: a silo tanker without a valid inspection is dead equipment. It may have a sound tractor unit, a clean vessel and a paid-up policy, but if the TDT decision has expired, the tanker has no right to travel with a load or — at our site — to enter the loading bay. From the perspective of running a fleet and a terminal in Chorula, I treat the supervision documentation just as seriously as the brakes: it is not bureaucracy, but the condition for working safely with equipment that operates under pressure.

Operation Clean Sweep — zero pellet loss and batch traceability across the supply chain

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

Operation Clean Sweep (OCS) is a voluntary, international plastics-industry programme — run in Europe by PlasticsEurope — whose goal is to prevent pellets, flakes and polymer dust from escaping into the environment at every stage of the supply chain. Signatories commit to striving for zero raw-material loss: from the producer’s reactor, through transport, transloading and storage, all the way to the processor’s line.

Put simply: the point is that not a single pellet should escape the process to a place where it does not belong. From a terminal’s perspective this is not a slogan from a marketing brochure but a daily discipline at the funnel and tray.