Lost in translation?


Extract from manufacturers’ Product Safety Data Sheet Flashpoint:


Flammability:


Not applicable Not applicable


Ignition Temperature: Not applicable Danger of Explosion: Fire Hazards:


Not applicable Material is


shock sensitive and potentially explosive!


training aimed specifically at their operational requirements. The result is the Book it right and pack it tight guidebooks and training set.


Book it right and pack it tight


The Club hopes to make a contribution to boosting global understanding and use of the IMDG Code with the Book it right and pack it tight pack of guidebooks and training material.


● Individual skills and attitudes


It should not be forgotten that individual employees make decisions that affect outcomes, albeit against their organisational background. Many people are trained to perform a narrow set of technical skills repetitively, quickly and semi-automatically to achieve business productivity – for example to create dangerous goods documents on a computer, process a cargo booking, pack a container or book containers through a dock gate.


For such individuals it is more difficult to apply the IMDG Code rules than to ignore them. Employees who are disaffected, poorly trained, or poorly supervised will take short cuts and break the rules to get the job done with least effort. That may mean ignoring the IMDG Code.


IMDG compliance should mean less incidents


We have seen that there are many potential hidden causes of dangerous goods incidents, and many obstacles to the observance of the IMDG Code. While this situation prevails, the risk to ships from hazardous cargo will remain unnecessarily high.


However, if all dangerous goods are shipped under the IMDG Code rules, the risks will be considerably lower. If ships know the nature, the hazard and the identity of the cargo, it can be stowed and segregated appropriately, and incidents handled confidently. Dealing with a deck fire involving a known commodity is altogether different from dealing with an unknown commodity burning below deck.


Accepting that increasing IMDG Code compliance is at the heart of the solution, how can this be achieved? The Club believes that a significant improvement can be brought about if shippers and container packers in all regions could be provided with practical IMDG Code


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The guidebooks look at the role of the shipper, the shipping line booking agent, the freight consolidator (manager or supervisor), and the fork lift operator and cargo handler who physically loads the container, and identify the key duties of each. The party concerned, instead of having to search through the 800 pages of the Code looking for his instructions, starts by consulting his guidebook.


The guidebooks explain in simple terms what duties the IMDG Code requires, with colour illustrations and photographs. Each duty described in the guidebooks includes a reference that takes the reader directly to the text in the Code where the full technical details are found.


What the guidebooks contain


Guidebook 1 in the series is for shippers. It explains the shipper’s key duties such as:


● Classifying the hazard – the guidebook explains how the UN classification system identifies all the dangerous goods details about a particular hazardous substance.


● Documenting the hazard – indicates the details that the IMDG Code requires be notified about dangerous substances, and how the IMDG Code draws them together into a common global format for documentation. The guidebook includes examples of how the shipper must make out a shipper’s declaration for different types of dangerous goods, and how they should be presented on the document,


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