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The jumbo bags are filled from the top, and some are arranged so they may be emptied from the bottom or are just cut open, if not of a re-usable type. For easy handling by fork lifts, the bags may also be transported on pallets.
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Transportation is usually done by lifting in loops, and there are bags with one, two or four loops at the top, depending on whether they are to be lifted by crane or forklift. They may be round or square and vary in heights between 100 and 200 cm, and are often made of an outer layer of woven polypropylene for strength and an inner layer of polyethylene. More and more cargo is transported in jumbo bags, which are made in many sizes, for contents usually between 500 and 3,000 kg. Other names used for such cargo units are "big bag", "super sack", "bulk bag", but the proper name is Flexible Intermediate Bulk Container, or FIBC. In dry, granulated form, these products may be shipped in bulk, in sacks or in large, so-called jumbo bags, both in bulk vessels and in other types of dry cargo vessels. Fertiliser may be ammonium nitrate, which is also used for explosives, or other types of nitrates or phosphates, including urea. As fertiliser is in big demand by the same agricultural countries, it has become a very common return cargo. Reefer vessels, purpose built for carrying fruit, may carry different types of available cargo when returning to the fruit producing countries. Gard has searched for other similar cases and looked at the transportation of granulated cargo in jumbo bags, first of all as a return cargo in reefers. Both these reefer vessels carried fertiliser in jumbo bags. That brought to mind a very similar case from 1997, when the reefer vessel VANESSA also capsized in bad weather and went down. In the Bay of Biscay the cargo shifted in heavy weather, the vessel took a list to port, capsized and sank. About a year ago a reefer vessel insured by Gard went down on a voyage from Europe to South-America.