Dangerous Goods
Dangerous Goods
Cargo classified as dangerous requires regulatory information that ordinary cargo does not. The booking note collects it through additional fields that appear once a cargo entry is marked as dangerous.
Set on each cargo entry
Dangerous Goods is a field on each cargo entry, not on the booking note as a whole. A single booking note can mix dangerous and non-dangerous entries, and each entry carries its own classification.
Where a shipment contains both, put the hazardous items in their own cargo entry. Marking an entry as dangerous applies its classification to everything in that entry, so mixing hazardous and ordinary goods in one entry misdeclares the ordinary goods. See Containers and Cargo /en/booking-notes-module/booking-note-form/containers-cargo).
How to mark an entry as dangerous
Set Dangerous Goods to Yes on that cargo entry. Three fields appear below it. The default is No.
The extra fields
| Field | Required | Type | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| IMDG Class | Yes | Dropdown | The International Maritime Dangerous Goods class for the substance |
| UN Number | Yes | Text | The four-digit UN number identifying the substance |
| Packaging Group | No | Dropdown | The packing group indicating degree of danger: I, II or III |
IMDG Class and UN Number are mandatory once Dangerous Goods is set to Yes. The booking note cannot be submitted without them.
Packaging Group is optional in the form because not every substance has one. Where the substance does have a packing group, fill it in.
Where the values come from
All three come from the safety data sheet or dangerous goods declaration for the substance. They are not values to estimate or infer from a similar shipment.
If the declaration is not available, it should be obtained from the shipper or manufacturer before submitting. A booking note with a guessed UN number is worse than one that is late.
Switching back to No
Setting Dangerous Goods back to No hides the three fields. Before doing so, confirm that the entry genuinely contains no hazardous goods, rather than that the classification details were inconvenient to find.
On booking notes read from a document
On a booking note created from a document or an email, dangerous goods information may have been extracted from the source. Check it against the declaration rather than accepting it. IMDG classes and UN numbers are short strings of digits and letters, which makes them both easy to misread and consequential to get wrong.