Total labor and equipment costs for the two methods are combined

in Table 15. Low fixed costs for the hand truck method result in lower

total costs for this method than for the conveyor method. At annual

volumes more nearly in line with those observed in packinghouses, the

difference in costs is not great, but the hand truck method still has

an advantage. Only at the highest volume shown in the table does the

conveyor method have lower costs. As in the case of handling burlap bags,

few packinghouses were able to operate the conveyor methods without one

or more workers manually transferring bags between conveyors. Where this

labor is required, costs for the conveyor method would be increased to the

extent that they would be higher than for the hand truck method at all

annual volume levels used in this study. The use of conveyors, therefore,

seems to be as questionable a practice for truck and rail loading of

paper bags as for burlap bags.