Register today! Rates go up April 1. September seems a long way off, doesn’t it? We in the Midwest are still digging out from our biggest snowfall in a couple of years, and major league baseball players are only just reporting to spring training this week. But it’s not too soon to talk about September,…
DG Digest: FRA establishes Emergency Relief Docket for year, and the Coast Guard announces next chem transport committee meeting
The Mid-February winter doldrums are here—we’re all ready for spring, but it still feels distant. Hopefully the crocuses will soon be peeking out, and a new cycle will return us to sunshine and the new green. The week saw a slight uptick in regulatory activity; here’s the latest: FRA The agency established its annual Emergency…
7 new lithium battery technologies; 0 new regulations
Considering the sheer impact of lithium batteries and the devices they power on today’s global economy, any new wrinkle in the regulations governing lithium battery transport creates aftershocks among: Battery manufacturers Device manufacturers Airlines and freight carriers E-commerce retailers Product recall managers Third-party logistics companies Hazmat trainers And anyone who owns a cell phone, laptop,…
Confessions of a 3PL hazmat manager: “Lithium batteries are my life.”
Cody DeGrush is Hazardous Materials Manager at GEODIS. As a hazardous materials manager for a major third-party logistics (3PL) company, I’m almost a regulatory consultant within my own company. I share guidance with other organizations whenever regulations change, I gather information when onboarding a new client, and I oversee training. For the last four years,…
Dangerous Goods transport technology: Wouldn’t it be cool if …
A couple of weeks ago, we published our 2018 DG Wish List, in which Dangerous Goods professionals from around the world shared their fondest dreams for the industry. Most of these wishes were pretty practical, from simplifying lithium battery shipping regulations to making sure shippers were better educated about hazmat. Others were grander in scale—like…
3 unexpected facts about Obexion lithium battery packaging
Since we introduced Obexion packaging technology last fall, we’ve had an unbelievable response from people who ship lithium batteries and battery devices. Many of the questions were predictable (even if the answers were amazing): Can Obexion really contain a 400°C lithium battery fire without gels, pellets or heavy liners? Yes—watch the video here. Can I…
Hazmat hopes: A 2018 wish list from top Dangerous Goods professionals
Last November, we asked our readers a simple question: What’s your biggest wish for 2018 in the entire Dangerous Goods galaxy? What regulation would you change? What stress-inducing process would you simplify? What one thing would you change to make your job easier—and the world safer? DG pros from all over responded, with wishes ranging…
Lithium batteries and new technology dominate our top 10 posts of 2017
If you’re a Dangerous Goods professional, just keeping up with changing regulations can be a full-time job. But you also have to make sure all your team members are compliantly trained, and you might even have to prove to your upper management (over and over again) that hazmat compliance is an area that justifies serious…
Don’t use hazmat software? Here are some things you might need
Of all the shocks in our 2017 Global Dangerous Goods Confidence Outlook, the biggest might have been this one: 26% of DG pros say they use no DG software – they use manual processes for any hazardous materials they ship or handle. Since we offer DGIS, the most sophisticated hazmat software available, we’d like to…
Remember these disasters? “Dang Good” training made sure they never happened.
This post is adapted from a presentation given at the 2017 Dangerous Goods Symposium by Gene Sanders, founder and manager of W.E. Train Consulting. Since we can abbreviate the words “hazardous materials” to “hazmat,” I say we shorten “Dangerous Goods training” to “Dang Good training.” It saves time, and it describes what we trainers hope…