● Average number of units found to have a DG deficiency – 27.6% (lowest 17.2%, highest 75%)


● Most common deficiency – labelling, marking, placarding


● Second most common deficiency – stowage within the CTU


● Followed by – documentation – packaging.


Also significant was the finding that an average of nearly 10% had damaged, unreadable or out-of-date CSC plates.


What can the shipping company do about this? Movements with such deficiencies are against the law. However, the transportation chain cannot, and should not, simply rely upon enforcement agencies and preventative action to control the situation. Only Finland has been able to report to IMO a reduction in the deficiency rate to a low level (3%). The rules themselves which are enshrined in the IMDG Code are basically quite clear and, to further aid the shipper, they will be published this year in a new multi modal format. There should, therefore, in theory be no excuse for not knowing what is needed and not implementing it. However, it is an imperfect world and how is the exporter in the middle of, say, a landlocked country or even in the middle of a maritime nation going to know what is required, let alone appreciate the stresses that a ship and its cargo moving across the oceans will undergo.


“The challenge is not to set and maintain a standard we can live with, but to set a standard that we could not live without.”


Despite the pressures of the commercial world and the need to minimise turnround times, the hazards from the carriage of DG are too great and the issue too important to ignore. Each shipping company needs to have a strategy backed by commitment and support if this increasingly important cargo is to continue to be carried safely.


The first requirement must be to ensure that the ships officers and crew are alert and aware of this type of cargo. With major retraining needed with the new Code during 2001, it is an ideal opportunity to raise general awareness at the same time. However, it is very clear that the ship cannot possibly run its own checks as the goods come aboard. It has to rely upon the shoreside to do this and, therefore, the second requirement is to ensure that there are good checking systems in place at the export port. These should cover the basic essentials


16


such as documentation (declaration and container/ vehicle packing certificate). placarding, marking, signing and labelling. They are the aspects which can readily be checked in the port and they also represent some of the most common deficiencies found (it is amazing how poorly some declarations are completed). A partnership needs to be established between the port and the ship as both benefit from a good standard whereas both are likely to suffer from a poor level of compliance.


That leaves the original customer – the shipper – and this is where the main effort must be made. In its revised Recommendations on the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods and related activities in the Port Area IMO introduced the term “cargo interests” to cover all those who are responsible for the cargo which arrives at the port and the ship and it recommends that they should be given training commensurate with their involvement. New ways need to be found, perhaps in company with the ports industry, to target shippers in a way which will not only reach them but which will influence their activities. Perhaps the use of electronic communications will enable a response to be generated giving essential DG information whenever a freight booking is made. Some shipping companies (and ports) run short information courses, which are free to their customers. Others produce information material – videos, pamphlets, booklets and cards. These are widely distributed and these efforts must be continued.


A missing placard, an imperfect declaration or a less- than-effective securement within a CTU might not, by themselves, render a situation dangerous. However, in certain circumstances each on its own could be crucial and there is a need to set a high standard of expectation. The truth is that we will get the standard we set and it could be alleged that we are not setting a high enough level. The challenge is not to set and maintain a standard we can live with, but to set a standard that we could not live without.


Dangerous Goods Guides


This UK Club, Carefully to Carry publication series ‘Book it right and pack it tight: shipping containerised dangerous goods by sea’, provides basic safety critical guidance for those engaged in all stages of preparing dangerous goods for carriage by sea; from booking cargo to packing the shipping container.


There are four guidebooks in the series each focused on a key operational stage in the transport chain – shippers and forwarders; shipping lines and freight sales agencies; consolidators and container packers; fork lift operators and cargo handlers.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24