Bulk bags shipped to South Carolina

Who fills bulk bags in South Carolina

Tires, rubber and carbon black

Tire plants in the Upstate and the Midlands mix rubber with carbon black, precipitated silica, oils and curing chemicals. Carbon black and silica are fine, light powders, and they arrive by the truckload in bulk bags.

Carbon black stains everything and drifts at the slightest draft, so its bags are coated or lined with sift-proof seams and a spout bottom that docks onto a discharge station. Silica is just as fine but white, and the bag interior must be clean.

Both are combustible dusts in the wrong conditions. Which static type a plant uses, and whether a Type C bag is grounded at each station, is set by the site's hazardous-area assessment and the bag maker's documents. We match the bag to the spec you give us; we do not choose the type for you.

Tire plants also take bags of zinc oxide, sulfur and other compounding ingredients. Sulfur is flammable as a dust, so its bags fall under the same hazardous-area rules; zinc oxide is dense, white and fine, and needs a clean coated bag with tight seams.

Charleston and the inland ports

The Port of Charleston handles containers on the Cooper and Wando rivers and is the state's main gateway for imported resin, chemicals and machinery and for exported products from Upstate plants. Bagged export cargo stuffed into containers near the port needs bags sized to the box and to the gross weight the shipper works to.

Two inland ports move containers between the coast and the interior by rail: Inland Port Greer, near Greenville and Spartanburg on I-85, and Inland Port Dillon in the Pee Dee off I-95. A container of bagged resin can clear at the coast and ride the rail to Greer before it ever meets a truck.

Coastal warehouses in North Charleston and Summerville face the same summer weather as the rest of the Southeast coast. Atlantic hurricane season runs from June through November; keep bales off the floor and wrapped, and inspect any bag that has been wet or left in the sun.

Bag makers' handling guidance is plain about sunlight: UV softens and powders polypropylene, and a bag left out long enough should not be lifted. A pallet of filled bags forgotten on a Charleston dock in July is exactly that case.

Upstate fiber and plastics

Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson and Rock Hill were built on textile mills. Many of today's plants make synthetic fiber, nonwovens, films and molded and compounded plastics instead, which keeps resin pellets, masterbatch and regrind moving in bulk bags.

Pellet lines usually take a duffle-top or spout-top bag with a spout bottom, often Type A for non-flammable pellets in a room with no flammable dust or vapour. Regrind and flake are lighter and fill a tall bag by volume. Recyclers often accept sound used multi-trip bags for flake after inspection, which is one of the places a used bag earns its keep.

Upstate plants work long, regular shifts, so a bag shortage stops a line fast. Plants that run several resin grades often keep a separate bale stack per bag spec, labeled, so a spout-bottom bag never ends up on a line that wants a flat bottom.

Greer and the I-85 corridor also host automotive and parts plants. Their bag needs are mostly for resin, metal fines and returnable packaging, and multi-trip bags that come back from a supplier must be inspected each round.

• Virgin resin pellets: duffle or spout top, spout bottom, Type A where the assessment allows
• Masterbatch and color concentrate: new bag, liner for dusty grades
• Regrind and flake: tall duffle top, flat or spout bottom; used 6:1 bags after inspection

Kaolin, sand and the Midlands

The kaolin belt that runs through middle Georgia crosses the Savannah River into Aiken County, where clay is mined and processed for fillers and ceramics. Fine white clay goes in new coated or lined bags with sift-proof seams, because any dirt shows.

The Sandhills, a band of old dunes across the middle of the state from Aiken through Columbia toward Cheraw, supply sand for construction, glass and foundries. Sand and crushed stone from quarries near Columbia are loads where a used bag built 6:1 can serve again after a visual check.

Granite quarries in the Piedmont north and west of Columbia produce crushed stone for roads and concrete. Sharp stone wears fabric quickly; coated bags with a heavier body and reinforced loops last longer, and every reused bag needs its loops and base checked first.

Columbia sits where I-20, I-26 and I-77 meet, which makes it the natural split point for LTL into the Midlands and a common drop for loads headed on toward Augusta or Charlotte.

Pee Dee farms and the booking

The Pee Dee in the northeast, around Florence, Dillon and Darlington, grows tobacco, cotton, peanuts, soybeans and corn, and poultry farms spread through the Midlands and the Upstate. Seed comes to dealers in new bags, treated seed with a liner, and fertilizer goes out in coated bags before spring planting.

Pine forests cover a large share of the coastal plain, and sawmills and pellet plants there produce sawdust, bark and pellets that sometimes travel in tall coated bags.

I-95 runs through the Pee Dee from North Carolina toward Savannah. I-26 runs from Charleston through Columbia to Spartanburg and the mountains, I-85 crosses the Upstate between Atlanta and Charlotte, I-20 runs from Augusta through Columbia to Florence, and I-77 links Columbia with Charlotte.

For a quote, send the product, SWL, safety factor, top, bottom, loops, liner and the delivery ZIP. We book empties pickups across the state for buy-back or recycling; bags that held carbon black or chemicals are booked as their own lot.