ASME B30.20 2025

The new ASME B30.20 for Below the Hook Items has adopted “Load Containers”. So how does this impact you as a contractor or a person working in the field? Those wood boxes, those plastic boxes… they are going away. As your location processes the rule and adopts standards and understandings, you’ll see them removed as options for lifting in favor of having rated lifters that will meet the new “Load Container”. I would tell you that this has always been the case. OSHA 1926.251 is clear that all material handling equipment needs a rating. Your wood box isn’t rated. It isn’t tested. It’s not a legal lift. So let’s define Load Container and see what you need to do to have Safe Materials Handling Equipment.

Define Load Container

ASME has long defined Structural Lifting Device and Supporting Lifting Device. Some states even use the term, “structural lifter” These are any assembly of steel parts that support a load. Think Crane Pallet Forks as an example. A Load Containing Lifting Device is for loose of flowable materials. This could be bolts in a box. John Shoes for concrete contractors. Concrete in a bucket. You don’t need a Materials Basket on a building that you are building. But you might need the parts in the Crane Materials Basket. The parts are the load. The Load Container is a rigging item. Are there any other rigging tools you would nail together? So why do people nail together Load Containers? There’s no reason for special pleading on the topic. It all needs a rating, including the Load Container. Why would we spend a million dollars setting up and renting a crane with ratings for everything only to have a weak link in the lifter?

Composition of unrated lifters found in the field.

Materials Handling Equipment

Materials Handling Equipment comes in wide ranges. Crane Skip Pans are shown in the ASME diagram as a “Load Container”. So is a Concrete Bucket. In most cases, everyone knows to have a rated crane trash bin and a rated concrete bucket. I’ve made the argument for years that I showed up trying to sell you a wooden concrete bucket you’d think I was a kook. “Just put it on slings. It’ll be fine.” And you would be right in that case. It’s a kooky idea. But it’s illustrative. It’s the bins, baskets, and crane pallets that are the larger problem in our industry that need addressing. Bins that are damaged or not even rated are used. And to what rating? If you have two 2” flat straps rated at 6400 lbs in a straight pull and I basket two of them on a wood box, can I put 25,000 lbs in the wood box? If that’s not the right answer, then what is the right answer? Are we lifting up item 40 stories over head and just guessing? It’s a blatantly poor practice. Yet it’s everywhere.

Pallet Lift on slings goes wrong with no injury.

Everyone Has a Near Miss Story

We’ve all seen lifts go really south. But then people go back to doing the same thing and don’t fix it. Lifts are that way. People lift on pallets. Know anyone with 5 years of crane experience without a failed pallet story? Well, in the US and Canada? Much of the rest of the world wouldn’t be silly enough to lift that way.

If I can illustrate a story about how poor human behavior is at solving problem. I’m running a tower crane. Guy lifts a sheet of plywood off of a parking garage floor. He steps forward and disappears. The plywood falls flat. My brain scrambles for a second taking in what just happened. A guy runs down and brings him up to the working deck. Everyone is huddling. The team points to the plywood and just goes back to work like the problem is solved. I call the site superintendent and inform him the crane isn’t moving until the plywood is beveled, nailed down, and marked as “Hole”. The behavior of not correcting and just avoiding the known hazard is one of those huge human behavior flaws. You stop and fix it so it doesn’t happen again. That’s the solution when you see something wrong. When it comes to lifters and them not being safe, everyone has a story. But not everyone brings a solution. We bring solutions so this stuff doesn’t happen again. Following the ASME is the solution being brought.

We have to take responsibility and find the solutions. If you like the Pallet Bins that are made of plastic, maybe you swap over to our Universal Bin. It’s the same size. Castors are added via the supplied carriage bolt holes.

Pallet Bin - 4’ by 4’ - 3300 lbs or 4400 lbs rated with an ASME B30.20 certificate.

If you like lifting a stack, you need castors, you need lids, galvanized large sizes, these are ASME B30.20 rated as load containers to 13,230 lbs at 4 yards. They can be trash bins too. Forklifts get under them easily. In Europe these just get abused with brick from renovations basically being thrown at them all day.

Crane Skip Pan called Bulk Bins by Eichinger.

Concrete Buckets are Load Containers

The reference to Concrete Buckets as load containers is genius. It’s great for illustrating what load is. It’s what’s inside of the container. The concrete. We could talk about Load from a crane perspective as well to have a different answer. But when it comes to lift planning from the rigging perspective, load is the items you need to move. Our ASME rated concrete buckets are diverse. Up to 10.8 yards. 500 variations. Check out this monster Concrete Bucket in fabrication. It’s 5 yards. 62 Inch loading height. The gate is 4.5 feet wide. You can flow wide and fast.

Wide 5 Yard Concrete bucket in fabrication Model 1095

The New Standard will Save Lives and Drive Innovation

The beauty of design is that we can not only ensure a rating, we can put functionality in the design. We have Automated Crane Trash Bins that are really and truly what’s next in crane trash operations. Our automations keep people out of dumpsters. It doesn’t have to be our trash bins. It can be the great design of someone else’s tool. The point is that when we don’t have buyers for items and wooden boxes can be built, people won’t spend. Manufacturers won’t develop because no one is going to buy. The reason our line of products are so diverse is because EU countries require crane ratings. This drives innovation. You’ll have a better experience in ten years versus what we do today as a result of this new rule.

Affordable Materials Handling Equipment

Some crane attachments are just expensive. I see prices of $7000 for a 4’x4’ basket and I cringe. Ours have costs. But we also have affordable options. Our four post pallet stillages can be set up with a board holder. This allows you to have a frame that is rated. Then to enclose everything, you use 1” board or used form boards to close in the bin to make it a container for loose items. It’s literally a $250 cost to have a crane rated bin rated at 3300 lbs. This doesn’t have to be expensive as a solution. It’s nearly the same cost as wood, but with proper engineering.

Another Win - Speed

The other benefit to the change in the rule is more production. The unseen reality is that the process we use of putting on slings takes time. Besides being prone to error in installing slings, The other issue is that it takes 2-3 minutes to put them on and take them off. In the course of the day, I’ve drank a lot of coffee as a crane operator watching people rig up the load. When it’s hook in and go, it can be 15 seconds vs the three minutes. And that’s a $500 an hour or more. If you have a bin that you lift 5 times a month for 10 years, that’s 600 lifts. If it costs you $300 to buy, but over 600 lifts you save $22 per lift cycle, you’ve saved $13,200 in operations. Not to mention you didn’t buy the slings to make that lift either. So you’re welcome. You give me $300 and I’ll give you $13,000. It’s a square deal.

When Production Matters, CraneGear.net

If you have any questions, you can find me here by email. Or here by phone. I really do care. I spent a career in the field. It feels good to be able to improve what I had to live through. If I can make life better for all of you, I’m in to help out. Let’s get the compliance taken care of and you’ll see the rewards right away.

Load Containers that Don’t Meet the New ASME B30.20 2025