UN 3548: New Rules for Articles Containing Miscellaneous Dangerous Goods (e.g. articles with hydraulic fluid)

April 11, 2024 by Leave a comment

For those of you who’ve taken our hazmat shipping class, you know that when there is a conflict between the United States rules and the ICAO/IATA rules, if the United States forbids the shipment then you must follow the United States’ prohibition. A recent conflict between US rules and ICAO technical instructions just got resolved by a Final Rule published yesterday.

This new rule permits the transport by air of articles like aircraft landing gear parts that contain hydraulic fluid.

This issue has arisen for UN 3548 (Articles Containing Miscellaneous Dangerous Goods, N.O.S.) and also UN 3538 (Articles Containing Non-Flammable Non-Toxic Gas, N.O.S.). The shipping provisions for UN 3538 and UN3548 forbid shipment by both passenger aircraft and by cargo aircraft. This prohibition can be found in both the U.S. regulations and the ICAO (IATA) Technical Instructions. But there is a special provision in the ICAO Technical Instructions that permits shipping the goods by air if the only hazardous material in the article is either (1) an environmentally hazards substance, (2) a division 2.2. gas with no subsidiary hazards, (3) a “section II” lithium battery and an environmentally hazards substance, or (4) a “section II” lithium battery and a division 2.2. gas with no subsidiary hazards.

In each such case, the special provision number must be declared in the shipper’s declaration for dangerous goods and there is a packing instruction that must be followed:

  • Packing Instruction 222 for Articles Containing Non-Flammable Non-Toxic Gas, N.O.S. (per Special provision A225)
  • Packing Instruction 975 for Articles Containing Miscellaneous Dangerous Goods, N.O.S. (per Special provision A224)

These two special provisions permitted shipment by air (outside the U.S.) where the shipment appeared to be forbidden. Each special provisions was intended to apply to the transport of large articles containing a non-flammable, non-toxic gas or environmentally hazardous substances only under the specified conditions.

A conflict arose because the United States did not have these same special provisions, so shipment by air of UN 3538 or UN 3548 was simply forbidden in the United States. That issue was remedied with the publication (yesterday) of a final rule adding special provisions A224 and A225 to the United States regulations (and applying each of them to the applicable hazmat proper shipping name and UN number). So now these two UN numbers can be shipped by air (under the limited permissions of the two special provisions).

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“Dangerous Goods in Articles:” The Proper Shipping Name is ALMOST Ready to Be Used in the United States

September 17, 2021 by Leave a comment

I was looking at the list of major changes for next year’s IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations. I noticed that the major changes include expanded reliance on the new proper shipping name “Dangerous Goods in Articles.”

As a reminder, Hazmat shippers in the United States should NOT YET be using the proper shipping name “Dangerous Goods in Articles.”

This is a technical variance in what the law allows, but current use of the term in the United States as if it were a hazmat proper shipping name is not permitted, and could become the subject of an enforcement action.

The way that U.S. hazmat regulations work, is that you need to comply with the US regulations, for example, when you choose a proper shipping name for your package, it must be an authorized name. Right now, “Dangerous Goods in Articles” is not an authorized proper shipping name under U.S. law.

You are permitted to rely on the ICAO Technical Instructions when shipping things by air (except where prohibited). When US law permits reliance on an alternative source, that source must typically be incorporated by reference in the U.S. legal structure, which means that typically a specific edition or revision must be referenced. The specific edition of the ICAO Technical Instructions that is currently incorporated by reference is the 2019-2020 edition, which is incorporated at 49 C.F.R. § 171.7.

In the 2021-2022 revision, ICAO published a proper shipping name that will be quite useful to the aviation community: “Dangerous Goods in Articles.” The problem is that IATA immediately included this in the 2021 IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations, but the United States did not immediately incorporate the new ICAO edition by reference.

It is worthwhile to remind the reader that despite bearing the name “regulations” in the title, the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations are not actually regulations. They reflect a ‘field manual’ for compliance, and they are based on the ICAO Technical Instructions.

The United States regulations still reference the 2019-2020 edition of the ICAO Technical Instructions as the edition that is currently permitted to be used for compliance.

The United States is taking steps to incorporate by reference the 2021-2022 edition (which includes the new term). The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that will accomplish this was published on August 10, 2021. If you have a comment to share, then you may wish to submit it to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The proposed rule is open for comments through October 12, 2021.

As far as timing goes, there is a good chance that the final rule incorporating by reference the 2021-2022 ICAO Technical Instructions will be published by the end of 2021. And when it is, we should be authorized to use “Dangerous Goods in Articles” when shipping by air. That same U.S. rule making project is also expected to add “Dangerous Goods in Articles” to the United States’ list of proper shipping names in the hazardous materials table (permitting more general use of the term). But that step hasn’t been taken yet.

So please, be patient and wait. The new proper shipping name is coming!

Looking for more hazmat compliance advice? We will be teaching a live, online, hazmat class for shippers of aviation goods next month (October 6-7). See our hazmat training webpage for more details!

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