JOY ORLEK DRAMATIC CHANGES to legislation governing the movement of dangerous goods by road are in the pipeline. These relate to SANS 10231 which deals with operational issues and SANS 10232.1 which covers the emergency information requirements. Both are in draft format and likely to become law in the near future according to Eddie Crane, MD of dangerous goods specialists EC Logistics. The draft essentially extends liability from the standard consignor, operator and consignee to include several other parties - the product manufacturer, product owner, product custodian or person who has control of the goods at a particular time but does not own them, as well as the party who contracts the operator for the movement of the goods. The legislation is currently in its second draft with the Transport Emergency Card (tremcard) the stumbling block. A proposal has been put forward for the creation of a South African transport emergency card to be known as ‘Trec’. “The problem,” says Crane, “revolves around accreditation of the party creating this document. Unless the card is 100% correct, there are major implications in the case of an accident and this issue has yet to be resolved.” Currently all transporters require a Cefic tremcard, which is the European standard and available from a limited number of vendors of which EC Logistics is one. While the tremcard is mandatory for all road-hauled dangerous goods and failure to comply has big implications in terms of insurance and damage to people and the environment, examples of industry negligence, often for financial gain, abound. A recent incident involved the movement of a truck load of asbestos from Zimbabwe to Durban. The vehicle, which had no placards or tremcard, escaped interception until it reached Durban where it overturned. In the absence of the necessary documents emergency workers were subjected to considerable health risk, as was the environment. “The question that needs to be asked is how it managed to pass through border control and all towns between the border post and Durban without being checked or penalised,” says Crane.
