As accidents involving dangerous goods continue to occur with regularity at sea, the UK P&I Club has published a comprehensive guide running to more than 100 pages to support operators who pack dangerous goods into cargo units for onward transportation by sea.
As part of the new guide, UK P&I Club makes the following points and advice:
– Improper packing practices and loads not properly secured increase the number of accidents across the supply chain and have as a result caused damages, loss and injuries, both on land and at sea.
– There is a lack of guidance regarding personnel working in the cargo handling industry. That is where the Code of Practice for Packing of Cargo Transport Units (CTU) becomes relevant. The CTU provides information regarding packing cargo in containers, in order to comply with the requirements of sea and land transport.
– Classification of dangerous goods: The first key task for an operator is to make sure that the dangerous goods on board have the correct UN classification.
– Selection of packaging: Operators must ensure that the product is packaged safely and is stable. IMDG 4.1 provides descriptions of packaging’s.
– Marking and labelling of packages: Appropriate and recognisable warnings on packages help maintain safe transport procedures.
– Preparing the transport document for booking with the shipping line: This indicates the way that information must be presented on the final transport document.
– IMDG segregation: Segregation is the process of keeping dangerous goods apart from other dangerous goods, that if the come in contact may react dangerously. IMDG provides guidance for this process.
– Packing the transport cargo unit: The packer is binded by the law as responsible to ensure that dangerous goods and the cargo unit is safely packed.
– The packing certificate: A certificate must be signed by the packer, saying that all cargo units comply with every IMDG Code requirement.
– Safely loading containers to the ship: The location of where the cargo units will be stowed depends on the ship design and the specific details of the dangerous cargo. Specialists called “cargo planners” decide where each cargo unit will be placed.
Download and read the guide in full: Guidance-on-packing-dangerous-goods-for-carriage-by-sea
