Letter from the Editor

EDITOR’S LETTER

Most parents will know how difficult it can be sometimes to get children to eat. They seem to have an innate ability to know that they don’t like particular foods, even when they’ve never seen or tasted them before. So I was very happy when my daughter decided that she really liked spaghetti bolognese. In fact, she liked it so much that Friday evening became the regular ‘Spag Bol Night’ and gave the family a chance to sit down around a steaming bowl of pasta.

When she grew up and moved out, my daughter found it hard to replicate that experience. Shop-bought or restaurant bolognese never matched what she remembered from home. So she rang me up to ask me how I made it. It’s quite flattering when someone thinks you do the best bolognese in the world – even if she is related – and I won’t lay out the recipe here, except to say this: celery is vital.

Anyway, some years later I was talking to an Italian about food and I asked him if he knew the ‘authentic’ recipe for bolognese sauce. He just said: “How many grandmothers are there in Bologna?” Each has her own way of doing it and each family considers their recipe as the authentic version.

It’s a little like that in the world of dangerous goods. Sit ten experts down at a table and give them a question on the regulations and you’re likely to get ten different answers. That’s not because nine of them are wrong, they may all be correct. And that is because the transport regulations recognise that there are different ways of doing things properly.

To some extent the variations stem from the regulators’ understanding that how goods are being packaged and transported is as significant as the hazards those goods pose to people, property and the environment. Allowances are made and relief is offered, depending on the quantity in a consignment and the nature of the packaging, as well as the mode of transport and other specific conditions (for instance, the permission to move otherwise forbidden dangerous goods by air to remote communities).

However, GHS, REACH and other similar efforts to categorise all the chemicals in the world are threatening this pragmatic approach. For them, each individual chemical has its own set of intrinsic hazards and they never change. Anyone (anyone with a degree in chemistry, anyway) can look at the safety data sheet (SDS) and see what those hazards are and how the material should be handled.

A major problem has emerged in the interpretation of Section 14 of the SDS, which lists transport information. The idea of this section is to assist shippers in correctly communicating the hazard(s) posed by their shipments during transport. What it cannot do is cover all possible scenarios. I have seen SDSs in which Section 14 takes up a whole page, yet there is no mention of Limited Quantity thresholds, tunnel codes for ADR, stowage and segregation codes for IMDG, applicable special provisions or any of the other details that have to be shown on the transport document.

An SDS is not a transport document, so if anyone asks for it to check that the consignment is compliant with the transport regulations, they are not just wrong they are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Just as wrong as if they put mushrooms in their bolognese sauce.

Cargo Media Ltd Marlborough House 298 Regents Park Road, London N3 2SZ www.hcblive.com

Editorial Editor–in–Chief Peter Mackay Email: peter.mackay@hcblive.com Tel: +44 (0) 7769 685 085

Managing Editor Stephen Mitchell Email: stephen.mitchell@hcblive.com Tel: +44 (0) 20 8371 4045

Associate Editor Brian Dixon

Designer Tiziana Lardieri

Commercial Managing Director Samuel Ford Email: samuel.ford@hcblive.com Tel: +44 (0)20 8371 4035

Commercial Manager Ben Newall Email: ben.newall@hcblive.com Tel: +44 (0) 208 371 4036

Production Coordinator Sam Hearne Email: sam.hearne@hcblive.com Tel: +44 (0) 208 371 4041

HCB Monthly is published by Cargo Media Ltd. While the information and articles in HCB are published in good faith and every effort is made to check accuracy, readers should verify facts and statements directly with official sources before acting upon them, as the publisher can accept no responsibility in this respect.

ISSN 2059-5735

CONTENTS

VOLUME 38 • NUMBER 12

UP FRONT Letter from the Editor 30 Years Ago The View from the Porch Swing 1 5 6

TANKS & LOGISTICS The key to success EPCA considers Industry 4.0 ideas 8 It’s all Techno A new depot for Moerdijk 18 A louder voice for Asia ITCO and @tco combine 20

News bulletin – tanks and logistics 22

CHEMICAL DISTRIBUTION Facts, figures and the future Fecc holds up a mirror to the sector 26 A quality quarter Brenntag on the move, and moving up 30 A look at the books How distributors are doing so far 31 News bulletin – chemical distribution 33 COURSES & CONFERENCES Training courses Learning from training Conference diary

SAFETY Incident Log Well done you Hapag-Lloyd recognised Restrictions revealed Hazcheck gets support for extension 52

REGULATIONS Back to business UN experts start work on 2019 text 54

THE BACK PAGE Not otherwise specified 64

INDUSTRIAL PACKAGING ICS leads consolidation Equity funds help reconditioning sector 34 Integrity assured Schütz’s safer closure for plastics drums 36 Plastics drum manufacturers listed 37

News bulletin – industrial packaging 37 Move them drums! STS offers advice on equipment selection 40

GAS SHIPPING Where to next? BW’s view on the LPG trades 41

Sweat the small stuff Better times for Epic’s FP gas ships 43 Ready for anything Veder leads small-scale LNG rush 44 NEXT MONTH Bulk liquids storage terminal markets The latest in tank container equipment News from distributors in North America