Hazardous material detector for detecting hazardous material in a mailstream

• US 20080034901A1
• Filed: 03/09/2007
• Published: 02/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pitney Bowes Incorporated (Böwe Systec AG)
• Original Assignee: Pitney Bowes Incorporated (Böwe Systec AG)
• Inventors: Beck, Christian
• Granted Patent: US 7,556,250 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 73/865.8
• CPC Class Codes: G07B 17/00661 Sensing or measuring mailpieces weighing G01G19/00

Abstract

The invention disclosed herein relates generally to mailpieces and more particularly, a hazardous material detector for detecting hazardous material in a mail stream. The present invention is directed, in general to detector for collecting sample(s) of hazardous materials from a mail processing device. The mailpiece generally comprises an envelope comprising a front side and a back side; holes formed in at least one of the front side or the back side of the envelope; a hazardous material test strip for detecting the presence of hazardous material in contact with the test strip; whereby when hazardous materials are detected by the hazardous material test strip a physical change occurs to the hazardous material test strip and the physical change can be viewed through at least one hole formed in the at least one of the front side or the back side of the envelope. The detector helps to quickly determine whether hazardous materials are present in the mail stream.

Claims

1. A document inserter system for creating a hazardous material detector comprising:

an input system for feeding sheets of paper into the insertion system for creation of a collation for feeding into an envelope; and

at least one insert station each having at least one insert supply tray for adding inserts into the collation; and

an envelope insertion station for inserting the collation into the envelope,

wherein the at least one insert supply tray includes a hazardous material test strip tray configured to insert at least one hazardous material test strip.

2. The document inserter system of claim 1, wherein:

the at least one hazardous material test strip is inserted into a back side of the envelope if the envelope includes an address window.

3. The document inserter system of claim 1, wherein:

the envelope is addressed to a postal sorting facility.

4. The document inserter system of claim 1, wherein:

the envelope is addressed to a hazardous material test facility.

5. The document inserter system of claim 1, further comprising:

a punch device for creating holes in the envelope.

6. The document inserter system of claim 1, further comprising:

a printer configured to print an identifier on the at least one hazardous material test strip.

7. The document inserter system of claim 6, wherein:

the identifier includes a barcode.

8. The document inserter system of claim 1, wherein:

the at least one hazardous material test strip is inserted into a front side of the envelope.

9. The document inserter system of claim 1, wherein:

the envelope includes at least one hole; and

the at least one insert station is configured to insert the at least one test strip adjacent to the at least one hole.

10. A method for testing mail processing systems comprising:

creating a mail piece including an identifier, an envelope having at least one hole and at least one hazardous material test strip; and

sending the mail piece to a destination and associating the path of the mail piece with the identifier.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

determining if the hazardous material test strip detected a hazard and processing such hazard information using the path associated with the identifier.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein:

the destination is a postal processing facility.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein:

the destination is a hazardous material test facility.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining if the hazardous material test strip detected a hazard by optically inspecting the test strip through the at least one hole.