The backload of "empty" drums
A driver delivering to a plant outside Cork is asked to backload 18 steel drums for return to a supplier in Limerick. The drums last contained UN 1789 HYDROCHLORIC ACID, 8, II. They have been "emptied" by tipping, are not closed - bungs are off and lying loose on top - and several have visible liquid in the bottom. The dispatch clerk hands the driver a delivery note marked "EMPTY STEEL DRUMS - NOT DANGEROUS GOODS" and says the vehicle is going that way anyway, so it would be a waste not to take them. The driver's vehicle is a 7.5 t curtainsider already carrying palletised cartons of ceramic tiles for another customer. The drums are standing loose on the dock, not palletised, and one is visibly dented at the chime.
1. Are these drums dangerous goods? What is wrong with the document the clerk has offered?
Read the worked answer
Yes. An empty packaging that has not been cleaned and purged still contains residues of the dangerous goods it last held, and those residues can escape, react or corrode exactly as the product did. The carriage is not exempt simply because the drum is nominally empty.
What is wrong with the note:
- The description is false. "Not dangerous goods" is a statement the consignor is making to the carrier and to any enforcement officer who reads it. It is not the driver's to accept once he can see liquid in the drums.
- The required entries are missing. The document for empty uncleaned packagings must identify them as empty packaging of the relevant class, with the UN number and the details of the last contents, so that anyone handling the load knows it is Class 8 corrosive residue.
- The marking is missing. The drums should still carry their Class 8 labelling for the last contents; emptied-but-uncleaned packagings do not become unlabelled steel.
A driver who signs for this load carries an undocumented corrosive consignment under a declaration that it is harmless. That is the worst of both worlds: full risk, no information.
2. What conditions would have to be met before the driver could accept any of these drums?
Read the worked answer
Treat it as a list that must be satisfied before the tail-lift goes down, not a list of good intentions:
- Closed and leak-tight. Each drum must have its bung fitted and tightened; a drum with visible liquid and an open bung cannot be carried. The dented drum at the chime should be rejected outright - it is the one most likely to fail on the road.
- Correctly described. A proper document for empty uncleaned packaging of Class 8, with the UN number and last contents, issued by the consignor. The clerk's note is not a transport document.
- Labelled and marked for the last contents.
- Stable and secured. Drums standing loose on a dock will roll under braking in a curtainsider; they need palletising or proper securing against the vehicle structure, and the curtains themselves secure nothing.
- Checked against the rest of the load. The cartons of tiles are not food or feed, so segregation is not the issue; the issue is whether a leaking drum can contaminate or damage the other customer's goods, and whether the mixed load is properly secured as a whole.
If any item fails, the correct answer is to leave the drums and tell the carrier why.
3. The clerk says the supplier will send a document later and the driver should "just take them, it's only a backload". What should the driver do, and what is the wider point about who carries the risk?
Read the worked answer
The driver should decline the drums until the document exists in physical or verified electronic form. "Later" is the point at which the vehicle is on the road with 18 open corrosive-residue drums and no description of them. If the driver is stopped, the officer asks for the document, not for the supplier's promise; if a drum leaks, the emergency services need to know what the residue is from the first minute, not after a phone call to Cork.
The wider point is about where risk sits. The consignor carries the duty to classify, pack and describe; the carrier carries the duty to provide a suitable vehicle and a trained driver; the driver carries the duty to check that documents and load are in order and to refuse what is not (1.4.2.2). "It's only a backload" is an attempt to move the consignor's duty onto the driver's signature. Declining costs a phone call and a wasted journey; accepting costs a misdescribed corrosive load travelling through two counties with nobody on board able to say what it is.