ASME B30.20 2025 - Updated to save lives

Sometimes in a career you might find yourself feeling as if you are one person telling the whole industry they are wrong. I’ve felt that way for the last couple of years. I’ve maintained that it’s illegal to lift wood and plastic boxes on slings. No rating, no lift. Slings make no difference legally or in practice. I found no one to defend this obvious legal and practical position. Until this morning. ASME B30.20 2025 updates this and clarifies that they agree with me. All containers and supporters need a crane rating. Well, glory be…

This isn’t a sales driven position. I’m first and foremost a crane guy. I was involved in a tower crane collapse in 2006 that was an engineering problem. I put it up. I complained, the engineer said I was wrong. Matthew Ammon died. It changed me. My perspective is safety oriented. Don’t get me wrong, as a tower crane operator, I’ll rip out 17 lifts per hour all day for years on end. But if it’s not right, we stop. I’ll hurt your feelings if that’s what it takes.

This sort of thing has to stop.

OSHA 1926.251 has always said that materials lifting devices have to be rated. It’s vaguely written. The Letters of Interpretation make it clear they are talking about Below the Hook items and that they want us to use ASME B30.20 inspection standards.

“The construction industry recognizes the necessity for inspections of below-the-hook lifting devices. An employer who follows ASME B.30.20, specifically sections 20-1.3.1 through 20-1.3.7 and 20-1.3.9 with respect to inspections for below-the-hook lifting devices (other than for slings), would be considered to be in compliance with OSHA requirements.” -OSHA - Source Letter

The states with the newest codes cite structural lifters. Washington State updated in 2010.
”Structural and mechanical lifting devices must be constructed in accordance with ASME B30.20-2010, Below-the-Hook Lifting Devices.” - Source

Then the ASME B30.20 has always had language that refers to items that support or contain a load as structural lifters

Structural Lifting device: a lifter consisting of an assembly of rigid parts designed to hold and attach a load to a hoisting device.

Supporting Lifter : “A lifter that carries a load…”

If just seemed as it couldn’t be clearer that everything that contains a load needs to be rated. But I would not find support for this outside of my head and a few people. The reasoning seems obvious to me. If you spent a career doing it wrong, how quickly would you be in wanting to admit it wasn’t correct? It’s a human challenge. I’ve lifted maybe thousands of wood boxes. We simply have to get on with correcting it.

The new ASME shows diagrams of load containing lifting devices. I’d just show the picture, but it might be a copyright issue. They are similar to these.

Crane Skip Pan or “Bulk Bin” by Eichinger - Model 1046 (come with better lifting eyes too)

Finally, we have an industry standard not afraid to say it. We have to have ratings on lifting devices even if they are a simple container. What this does is it sets a new industry standard. The way this impacts codes is through the General Duty Clause that says employers need to keep workplaces free of recognized hazards. Having bins and boxes that aren’t rated or built to ASME standards is now a recognized hazard. It’s not a specific code, but they will hold you to it if something goes wrong. Anyone a part of any investigation knows how that works.

If I can break this down. I think the language we use in cranes and rigging has a conflict people don’t see. “I’m going to go lift that load.” When a crane operator says, “load” they are thinking of all of the parts that impose load on the crane. The hoist rope, swing away on the boom, block on the crane… it’s all load. When it comes to rigging, the load is what we need to move. We move the load with rigging and attachments. This might be a bin. What’s inside the bin that isn’t the bin, that’s the load. Let’s make it even clearer as it’s a different concept to adopt. When you lift a concrete bucket filled with concrete, the load is the concrete. Full stop. The bucket is a part of the rigging assembly. It’s not all “the load” despite that being true from the crane side. We need to work a rigging concept, and a crane concept here. Both have different needs and requirements.

The truth is that when we make this lift

… the plastic box is conveying no rating for a crane lift. It does have one for a forklift. As a crane lift, it’s zero lbs. You couldn’t legally have a half inch bolt in there.

Let’s take a closer look at that bin, you see how the slings are bending it in? The ASME design document called the BTH-1 that guides manufactures would cause this bin to be rejected because of that deformation alone. I’ll get into rejection criteria in another blog one day. But this bin is also not made of steel which is another requirement. Those wood boxes are a no under the ASME. A critical point riggers can ask themselves is, “Am I lifting this as the manufacturer prescribes?”. If you don’t know, you have to presume that you aren’t or it wasn’t “manufactured”.

This is going to change in the US and Canada. There will be time to change, but it’s happening whether we like it or not. We have solutions. I would point to our 1311 with a board holder as the cheap solution. In USD we’d be at $106 for a four post rack. $100 for board holders. Then you add in 1” wood boards to box it and maybe compartmentalize it as you wish. Boom. She’s done. Stacks. No slings needed. Get it with castors. Ships in stacks of 20 to not waste volume. We have lots of other solutions too. Just reach out at sales@cranegear.net and I’ll get you taken care of. Or you can call. Texts are fine too.

We need to remove weak links in your rigging chains. The update to ASME B30.20 for 2025 forces this issue. I couldn’t be happier for crane safety. The industry will not police itself here and we need this push. Let’s get it done and you’ll benefit financially in being able to hook in instead of slinging up every load. If you stop to consider the economics… the crane and crew will run you $500 per hour. If you use 3 minutes to put slings on and take them off, it’s $25 to use those slings just one time. Uff. So going to our 1311’s pays you back in 8+ uses. The other 150 times you’ll lift it in it’s life cycle is just our bonus to you.

If you need to buy the ASME, you can find it here.