Today marks exactly one month to go until Christmas Day (along with Black Friday), which means that business is getting busier by the day for retailers and shipping companies. It's likely that the next month will involve a huge influx of orders that exceed usual demands, which means that stocking up on all necessary shipping supplies is absolutely vital! 

Packaging labels are one of the most important aspects of your shipping strategy, especially during the period between packing and delivery. In order to earn the trust of retail clients and customers, companies must ensure that all orders are handled correctly, and arrive in the expected condition. To do this efficiently, clear and durable packaging labels must be used, in order to point out instructions for how packages should be treated, and when they should be sent.

Here are just a few of the packaging labels we supply here at Label Source:

Shipping Transit Labels 

These red labels provide clear, recognised instructions for handling and storing packages, to help ensure that the contents of your orders are never damaged or compromised.

Dispatch Labels

These labels provide highly visible notices for packages and pallets, which highlight the contents of the package, along with details of its position in the shipping process.

Heavy Duty Packaging Labels 

These labels are a great choice for more demanding environments, providing additional protection from chemicals, abrasions and the elements.

To see our full selection of packaging labels, click here! Alternativley, you can view our full range of warehouse and shipping products here.

It's that time of year again, which means that Road Safety Week is back, to provide us with reminders and motivation to stay safe on the roads. As you may remember from last year's blog post, 2015's theme focused on reducing the number of people using the roads, in an attempt to cut the number of driving-related fatalities.

This year, Brake (the charity who organise the RSW), are encouraging people to focus on six elements of their 2016 pledge:

Slow, Sober, Secure, Silent, Sharp & Sustainable 

You can make and share this pledge online, whether you're a business, an organisation or an individual; it's even open to non-drivers. All you have to to, is follow the six rules set out on the Break website, in order to protect yourself, as well as the people around you. Here's a bit more about each rule:

Slow - For drivers this means staying under the speed limits, and slowing down in bad weather, as well as for brows and bends. It also means adjusting your speed to protect pedestrians, in areas with schools, shops and homes. For everyone, this means speaking out for reducing speed, and helping drivers to understand the dangers posed by excess speed.

Sober - For drivers, this means never driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, while for everyone else, it means planning ahead to ensure that this never happens.

Secure - This means ensuring that everyone is belted up when driving, including small children, who should be in the correct restraint. Everyone else should to the same as a passenger themselves, and when accompanying family and friends.

Silent - This means never taking/making calls, or reading/typing whilst driving, and ensuring that you never chat on the phone to someone else who's driving.

Sharp - This means staying focused on safe driving, and taking regular breaks when needed. Drivers should also never drive when tired, stressed or when using medication that could impact their ability. Drivers should also wear any required glasses/contacts, and get their eyes tested every 2 years. We should all look out for friends and family whilst driving, and advise them if we don't think they're up to it.

Sustainable - This reiterates last year's point about aiming to drive less, or not at all, using cycles, public transport or walking as much as possible.

Need some additional motivation? Here are some of the facts that led to this year's theme choice:

• Breaking the speed limit or travelling too fast for the conditions contributes to one in four fatal crashes in Great Britain.
• In 2013, one in ten drivers killed in a crash had alcohol in their system, despite being under the legal limit, while one in seven road deaths are caused by a drink driver.
• Seatbelts reduce the chances of dying in a crash by 50%, while 21% of those who do die, were not wearing a seatbelt.
• When using a mobile or similar, you are three times more likely to crash.
• Poor vision cause and estimated 2,900 casualties, and cost £33 million per year.
• There are an estimated 29,000 pollution-related deaths in the UK every year, with 5,000 down to road transport.

The advice is simple: Stick to the legal guidelines, along with the advice given by safety signs, and take responsibility for your own actions whilst driving. If you're a non-driver, look out for those who are, and encourage them to follow these rules at all times.

In the last couple of days a new Press Ganey report has come to light; that highlights the impact of nurses' perceptions of workplace safety and their ability to assess and a accurately treat patients. The main focus of the report was the nurses' perception of workplace safety and their ability to monitor, evaluate and act on their patient's change in health. Nursing practice is vitally important to ensure that a high-quality and empathic care is provided for both patients and caregivers. Christy Dempsey, chief nursing officer at Press Ganey pointed out that integrating workplace safety and surveillance programs throughout the healthcare facility improves outcome measures, whilst also encouraging a commitment to nursing excellence.

The report noted that for healthcare facilities where nurses experienced high workplace safety:

• A 52% lower rate of missed care, as perceived by nurses.
• 27% of nurses at these facilities expressed greater job satisfaction.
• A 22% higher CMS Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating 
• There was also 26% decrease in hospital-acquired pressure alcers (also known as bedsores) at facilities where nurses felt that they were able to respond quicker to their patients' changing status.

These stats are very promising, and they back up Christy's point that workplace safety and surveillance programs helps improve outcomes in healthcare facilities. To help improve nurse safety, the report recommends organizations to: 

• Carry out adequate unit staffing that takes into account patient volume, nurse-skill mix and the intensity of care each patient requires.
• Ensure that uninterrupted, and sufficient meal and rest breaks are taken.
• Use patient data to improve scheduling and decrease extended work shifts.
• Develop a stable core of nurse leaders and nurses with leadership potential through taining and/or formal programs to develop these skills.
• Hire and retain a high percentage of RNs with a bachelor's degree or higher, and nursing specialty certifications.

If your organization meets these guidelines then they're certainly going to see an increase in nursing excellence, which will in part, improve nurse and patient outcomes.

For more H&S news and insight, be sure to follow Label Source on Twitter.

As part of our asset marking range, we supply a selection of security etching products, which are ideal for marking property, inventory, computers and more! These are available in the form of standard security marking stencils, and our supermark products, which are ideal for adding an additional level of security for tamper-proof results. This allows you to show clear ownership of a product and enabled quick identification. We allow you to customise your security etching stencils to ensure it fulfills your requirements. To see our full selection of asset marking labels and stencils, click here. 

Here's some more information about our security etching products:

Security Marking Stencils

Our stencil system is used for chemical etching or indelibly marking property and can be customised with user details, including names, postcodes, and number sequences. This allows items to be identified and efficiently traced when stolen or misplaced, which helps to deter crime and locate missing assets. Along with our selection of stencils, a variety of compounds are available to suit the texture and tone of the surface you intend to mark. Pack sizes start from as small as 25 pieces, so you can be sure that you are able to find a product that fits your individual requirements, however large or small they may be.

Supermark Labels & Stencils 

Supermark labels combine the qualities of tamper-proof, laminated and destructible security labels, with permanent marking stencils, in order to provide you with the highest level of security. Like our standard security etching systems, supermark security etching systems can also be customised according to your requirements and can be used on a variety of materials. They are available with one or two lines of text, and are supplied in packs of 50 with their compound.

If you want any more information regarding security etching systems, or about any of our other products, don't hesitate to get in touch, Our friendly team can be reached on 0800 3761 693.

If you've seen our range of hazard warning diamond labels for hazardous goods and substances, you may have wondered why these diamond-shaped stickers come in so many different colours and what each of those colours actually means. Today, we'd like to try and explain.

Below, we discuss hazard label meanings, how the colour code works and why you should be using them.

Chemical Hazard Label Colours, Explained

The colour of a hazard label depends on the type of hazard it identifies. For example:

Orange: Explosives (or Irritants)

Orange labels are used to identify explosive substances and articles. Some labels show the sensitivity of the explosive materials using a numerical scale ranging from 1.1 (mass explosion hazard) to 1.6 (extremely insensitive explosives). Orange labels are sometimes also used to identify irritants.

Green: Compressed Gases

Green labels identify compressed gases or items containing compressed gases.

Red: Flammable

Red means fire and so red hazard labels are used to identify flammable goods (including solids, liquids and gases).

Blue: Dangerous When Wet

If a certain article or substance is dangerous when wet, it may be marked with a blue hazard diamond label like this.

Yellow: Oxidising Agents

Yellow labels denote the presence of hazardous oxidising agents.

Black & White: Miscellaneous

Hazards that do not fit into any of the categories described above may be labelled using a black-and-white diamond like the one shown above.

For example, we sell black-and-white labels for corrosive chemicals, toxic/poisonous goods, radioactive materials, infectious substances, and marine pollutants.

Why Are Chemical Hazard Labels Important?

Chemical hazard labels are important for a few key reasons, namely:

• They categorise risks so staff can take appropriate steps to protect themselves
• They help labs, factories and companies to organise chemicals
• They help to outline steps set out in risk assessments

If you don’t use a hazard label, then it becomes difficult to categorise a risk it carries. To an untrained eye, most chemicals look the same – without labels, staff wouldn’t be to quickly protect and safeguard themselves.

What Are The Laws Surrounding Chemical Hazard Labels?

Under UK law, you need to use chemical hazard labels that comply with:

• CLP
• COSHH
• GHS
• REACH

These four acronyms essentially mean the same thing: to use labels that make sense across countries and cultures. They push forward a homogenised labelling system, where pictograms can be understood by anyone.

At Label Source, we stock labels that comply with all three of the above and will be compliant for the long term.

For more information on labelling regulations, consider reading our blog post on the subject: GHS: What Is A GHS Label and Why Is It Used?

Browse Our Range of Chemical Hazard Labels Today

At Label Source, we stock a range of chemical hazard labels for a multitude of uses. No matter what you need, you can trust us to supply high-quality, durable solutions.

For all other safety news, follow our Twitter.