Rack Safety Netting Singapore: Mesh That Stops Falls

Rack safety netting and anti collapse mesh in Singapore stop stored goods falling off the back or side of a rack onto anyone below. MOM recorded the transport and storage sector at 23.8 fatal and major injuries per 100,000 workers in 2025. This blog walks you through where mesh is needed, which type to fit and how, starting with the rack safety accessories range.

What is rack safety netting and anti collapse mesh?

Both are barriers fixed to the rear or side of a rack to catch stored goods before they fall onto people below or alongside. Anti collapse mesh is a rigid steel weld mesh panel bolted to the frame. Rack safety netting is a flexible net tensioned across the same opening. Same hazard, different material.

The hazard is specific. A pallet loaded a little proud, a carton nudged by the one behind it, or a load pushed through from the picking aisle can drop off the back of the rack. Where that rack backs onto a walkway, the drop lands on a person. The mesh or net turns an open back into a caught fall.

What you are buying here is people safety. The barrier carries no product and adds no pallet positions, so it earns its place against the injury it prevents. That is how every safety accessory gets justified, and our note on what each rack component does sets out the structure these barriers bolt onto.

Fit a barrier wherever the back or side of a loaded rack faces a person. Pick the material afterwards.

When do you actually need it, and on which racks?

Wherever the rear or side of a loaded rack faces a walkway, a workstation, a packing bench, an office or any place a person stands or passes. The drop zone is what triggers it, meaning the area a falling item can reach. The value or fragility of the stock has nothing to do with it.

A rack backing onto a solid perimeter wall does not need mesh, because nothing behind it can be struck. The same rack backing onto a main pedestrian route does. So does a run of back to back racks, where an item pushed through one side lands in the opposite aisle. The MOM circular on the safe use of storage racks frames all of this as part of the occupier’s duty to keep the workplace safe.

Height decides how far the drop zone reaches. An item falling from a 6m beam travels further out from the base than one falling from 2m, so a tall rack casts a wider drop zone that a walkway has to clear or a mesh has to close. High bay racking backing onto traffic almost always carries mesh for that reason.

Work the drop zones out on the floor plan first. That tells you which faces are exposed and how much mesh the job actually needs.

Weld mesh panels or safety netting, which should you use?

Rigid weld mesh for permanent rear cladding against a walkway. Flexible netting for pick faces, ends and retrofits where a rigid panel will not fit. Matching each one to its position is the whole decision.

SEMA’s rack safety guidance treats mesh cladding as a control for falling stored items. Weld mesh panels are steel, typically a 50mm aperture on a welded grid, bolted to the rear uprights as a permanent screen. They hold their shape under a leaning load, resist a forklift nudge from the far aisle, and suit the fixed back of a rack run that will not be reconfigured. Their limit is geometry: a rigid panel needs a clean rectangular opening to bolt to.

Safety netting is a tensioned flexible net that fits where panels cannot. Across a pick face, around an odd shaped end, or retrofitted onto a live rack without dismantling it. It installs faster and adapts to a changing layout. Its weakness is tension, since an under tensioned net sags and a worn one has to be replaced. A rack inspection checks both damage and tension.

Choose by permanence and geometry. Weld mesh for the fixed rear wall of a run, netting for the pick face and the retrofit, and the drop zone map tells you which openings are which.

What mesh aperture or net size do you need?

The aperture has to be smaller than the smallest item you store on that rack. A mesh sized for cartons does nothing against small parts that slip straight through the gaps, so this one spec decides whether the barrier works or only looks like it does.

A 50mm weld mesh aperture stops cartons, cases and palletised goods, which is why it is the default for general pallet racking. Small parts storage needs a finer grid. Where the rack holds loose components, fasteners or small boxes that a 50mm gap would pass, specify a 25mm net or a tighter mesh. Size it against the smallest unit on the rack.

Wire diameter and grid strength come next. The mesh has to catch a falling load without tearing, so a heavier gauge suits heavy stock and a lighter net suits light stock, matched to the weight that can actually come down.

Size the aperture to the smallest SKU and the strength to the heaviest. A barrier that stops the pallets while the loose parts go straight through has closed the wrong hazard.

How high does the mesh need to go, and how is it fixed?

It runs to the full loaded height of the rack on the exposed face. A barrier that stops halfway leaves everything stored above it free to fall, so the mesh or net closes the whole opening from the lowest loaded beam to the top of the top pallet.

Fixing is where cheap installs come apart. A weld mesh panel bolts to the uprights through brackets rated to hold the panel when a load leans on it, and safety netting tensions through eyelets or cables anchored to the frame. A net held up with a few cable ties is a curtain. The fixings have to carry the same fall the barrier is there to catch, which puts the fixing schedule on the same footing as the panel spec.

Coverage has to be continuous. A gap between two panels, or a slack corner on a net, is a hole a carton finds, so panels overlap or butt tight and the net stays tensioned across its whole span. Our note on wire decking on beam levels covers the horizontal equivalent, where mesh stops items falling through a level.

Run the barrier to full height and fix it to hold the load it catches. A half height panel protects the part of the rack nobody was worried about.

Is rack safety netting a legal requirement in Singapore?

It is required in practice wherever goods can fall onto people. The Workplace Safety and Health Act puts a duty on the occupier to protect workers from foreseeable harm, and a loaded rack over a walkway is a foreseeable falling object hazard. No single clause names mesh. The duty of care still makes containing the fall the occupier’s responsibility.

The data is why MOM treats it seriously. The transport and storage sector recorded 23.8 fatal and major injuries per 100,000 workers in 2025, up from 18.4 in 2024, and struck by falling objects remains one of the injury causes MOM tracks across warehousing. A rack over a walkway with no barrier is exactly the exposure those numbers describe.

Liability sits with the occupier. Where a falling load injures someone, the investigator asks whether the drop zone was identified and controlled, and an unmeshed rack over a pedestrian route is a control that was available and never fitted. The occupier’s safety duty runs whether or not a specific standard named the mesh.

Treat mesh over any occupied area as mandatory, because the duty of care already does. Waiting for a named rule leaves the gap open until an incident closes it.

Can you retrofit mesh or netting to existing racking?

Yes, and most installations are retrofits, because the falling object risk usually shows up after a layout change or a rack inspection. A walkway added behind a rack, or a run turned back to back, creates a drop zone that did not exist when the rack went in.

Netting is the easier retrofit. It tensions onto a live, loaded rack without unloading or dismantling, which suits a working warehouse that cannot stop. A rigid weld mesh panel usually needs clear access to the rear uprights to bolt on, so the choice often comes down to whether the rack can be emptied at all.

Inspection findings drive the work here too. A rack inspection that finds a loaded rear face over a walkway with no barrier produces a retrofit line, and forklift traffic dislodging loads from the far side pushes that line up the priority order, which our guide to forklift handling around racking covers. Budget the mesh as remediation.

Retrofit netting where the rack stays loaded and weld mesh where it can be cleared. The drop zone will not wait for a convenient shutdown.

Which faces to close, and with what

Rack safety netting and anti collapse mesh come down to one question: does the back or side of this rack face a person. Where it does, close the opening. Weld mesh on fixed rear runs, netting on pick faces and retrofits, sized so the aperture stops the smallest item on the rack and fixed to hold the load it catches. In Singapore the duty of care puts that containment on the occupier.

Send us your rack layout with walkways and workstations marked, and we will map the drop zones and specify what each exposed face needs. Request a drop zone review.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between anti collapse mesh and wire decking?

Anti collapse mesh is a vertical barrier on the back or side of a rack that stops goods falling onto people. Wire decking is a horizontal mesh panel on the beam level that stops goods falling through it. One closes the side, the other closes the floor of each level, and a rack over a walkway often needs both.

Does every rack in the warehouse need safety mesh?

No. Only racks whose rear or side faces a walkway, workstation or occupied area need it, which is a fraction of the racks in most warehouses. A rack backing onto a solid wall needs none. The drop zone map decides which faces are exposed and have to be closed.

What mesh aperture stops small parts falling through?

An aperture smaller than the smallest item on the rack, which for loose components or fasteners means a 25mm net or a tight weld mesh instead of the 50mm default used for cartons and pallets. Sizing the aperture to the average SKU is the common error that lets small parts through.

Is safety netting as strong as weld mesh?

For the right load it is, provided the net is rated to the weight that can fall and tensioned correctly. Weld mesh resists a leaning or nudged load better and lasts longer as permanent rear cladding, while netting suits pick faces and retrofits. Strength comes from matching the net rating to the fall.

Who is liable if goods fall from racking onto a worker?

The occupier, under the Workplace Safety and Health Act duty of care. MOM holds the workplace occupier responsible for identifying and controlling foreseeable hazards, and an unmeshed rack over a walkway is a foreseeable falling object risk. The supplier fits what is specified. The duty to specify the control sits with the occupier.