Greenway Products and Services, a Kamps® Company, Contribution to Saving Lives During Pandemic Crisis
Pallets have gotten us through one worldwide crisis, and will again be critical in handling the next.
Just one year ago, FEMA assembled massive distribution networks for Covid-19 vaccines, personal protective equipment (PPE), and Covid testing kits. Rather than simply dumping supplies at each governor’s doorstep, the 2021 White House launched a National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan. FEMA set in motion an unprecedented national and international distribution network. Pharmaceutical, test kits and PPE manufacturers all needed very large quantities of pharmaceutical-grade pallets to move their products. All during a period of time when wood became more scarce, and expensive.
Without this carefully executed, national distribution network, testing kits, PPE, and vaccines – all distributed quickly and as inexpensively as possible — the pandemic would have lasted longer and more variants would have emerged, all resulting in more deaths. Availability of pallets has proven to play an important role in the life-or-death situations facing hundreds of millions of Americans.
Greenway Products & Services contributed to this massive effort, with its three large pallet plants in the Mid-Atlantic region, each working around the clock to get the pallets to where they were needed, as they were needed.
Within one year the nation’s testing supply increased dramatically. When the National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan first launched in January 2021, no rapid, at-home tests were available. One year later there are more than 480 million at-home tests available. In addition, testing supplies have been sent to 21,500 free testing sites. We are proud to report Greenway Products & Services pallets were involved in moving many of those testing kits to your pharmacies and testing sites.
Our next challenge is a massive distribution of Covid-19 antiviral treatments. According to whitehouse.gov, 20 million courses of Pfizer’s life-saving antiviral pills have been purchased and are being distributed throughout the country. Again, these pills are life-savers — reducing the risk of hospitalization or death by 89%.
Greenway’s International Pallets
The Mid-Atlantic area is among the country’s busiest transportation hubs, with highways for truck transport, ports, and airports. With the area’s high level of international travel, it is no surprise that the New York area was one of the first in the nation to be hit with a Covid-19 surge. Until travelers coming into our airports, ports, and roads are fully vaccinated, we are at risk of exposure to variants brought to our shores. U.S. manufacturers and distributors are shipping internationally as well. Once again, testing kits and anti-viral medications are moving on Greenway’s heat-treated, internationally-sized, pharmaceutical grade pallets.
The Ukraine Crisis
U.S. workers continue to be taxed to work at warp speed, and Greenway is doing our best to help get humanitarian goods and military material to eastern Europe. The largest humanitarian warehouse in the world is located at a port in Copenhagen, Denmark, run by Unicef, the U.N.’s children’s charity. This warehouse serves as UNICEF’s Global Supply and Logistics Hub and houses life-saving supplies for emergencies anywhere in the world.
Again, getting the humanitarian aid to crisis areas is a life-or-death challenge. The warehouse, standing at over 26 yards high x 66 yards wide x 164 yards long, can store up to 36,000 pallets of supplies to save the lives of children all over the world. A series of robot cranes move supplies in and out of the warehouse’s racking system, orchestrating the pallets’ positioning and deployments based on turnover and expiry dates. The robots pick products and bring them to kit assembly areas, where up to 120 kits can be assembled per hour. Kits provide the necessities for safe water, sanitation and hygiene, school and medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. Hundreds of millions dollars of humanitarian aid is moved annually through this one warehouse.
Greenway Products and Services has demonstrated the capacity to meet the demands of the 2021 National COVID-19 Preparedness initiative.
And we are ready to respond to worldwide humanitarian crises, and to provide assistance to brave Ukrainians.
References:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0brmbg4
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