Aerosols and paint through the post

[Loose_Cannon]

Tried to order some touch up paint rattle cans through the post today and the dealer said no, the last few he had sent to customers they had been "intercepted" and destroyed by the Post Office as a hazardous product.

Now I had heard that importing paint and aerosols was a bit dodgy now due to Defra restrictions and risks from shipping/airfreight, but isn't this a bit much, or is it just Post Office policy? Should there be some greater awareness of this if your stuff is at risk from being impounded? Surely hacking open a parcel and then going to the trouble of "disposing" of it is more risk and cost than just delivering the damn stuff.

I've had numerous aerosols of paint, dinitrol, and releasing oil etc through Ebay very recently son have I just been lucky, or does it depend which courier to use?

Cheers

[Conor D]

I've had couriers tell me that they wouldn't take wheels with tyres on the rims, others said they would but there would be a delay as it would have to go by land rather than air. Maybe it's the same story.. I would want to speak to a courier rather than the seller.

[xjay1337]

I've bought loads of aerosols online and never had any issues at all getting them delivered.

[C.A.R.]

Seller obviously wasn't very good at packaging them!

It used to be that you couldn't send aerosols by air mail for obvious reasons (and rightly so) but was extended to domestic mail some years ago (tales of exploding aerosols seem completely fictional, as far as I can tell).

Many, many online sellers specify that you require a courier to deliver aerosols rather than by Royal Fail. However, probably just as many more get away with it by just using 2x Jiffy bags or plenty of sound-insulating bubble wrap so that tell-tale rattle can't be heard. The best one I've seen has been a tin of spray paint which had two very small but very powerful magnets, one in the concave section at the bottom of the tin and the other beneath the lid. This stopped the metal ball from being able to move about!

[Loose_Cannon]

Yes I can understand air mail, and possibly imports (as environmental regs on constituents vary from country to country) but domestic? Give it a rest.

Great idea about the magnets though - that might help me get some trim dye from the USA ;-)

[The Moose]

I believe that aerosols (in normal quantities) are generally considered to be Limited Quantities (LQ) of UN1950 of Dangerous Goods (DG). Some carriers will carry LQ of DG whereas others have a blanket 'no' approach.

If they've had issues in the past, then there's not a lot you can do about it I'm afraid.

It's as much of a pain for the merchant as it is for the customer!

[Nickyboy]

Royal Mail don't allow aerosols in the post, they have to go via Parcelforce.

All other carriers accept them for shipment by road

If you tell the post office it's paint/aerosol they won't accept it, if you do't tell them it's aerosol they'll let you send it, if it's found however then it'll be destroyed. Rattle cans are a bit of a giveaway but other paint isn't.

You can't send them by air period!

They can explode spectacularly just by being dropped, i still have a hole in my ceiling where i dropped one on a tiled floor and it shot straight up through the ceiling coating my wall in blue paint in the process!

Edited by Nickyboy on Monday 11th April 10:56

[Loose_Cannon]

Royal Mail seem determined to self destruct and make themselves as unappealing as possible. It pains me to say that especially when you see these poor bds delivering parcels day and night in their own cars for these minimum wage cut-throat delivery firms.

[jamieduff1981]

I run a small business manufacturing and selling enamel model paints, which we operate as a mail order business.

Posting these legally is an absolute nightmare. Infact the only way we can post them in the UK at all is through Parcelforce, and that is performed on a trade contract with them whereby they have already reviewed and agreed the Material Safety Data Sheet and they have spent a week kicking a sample package around a warehouse to satisfy themselves that the contents are secure.

This is an expensive service, and we have asked near enough every postal company that offers a door to door service whether they will carry these goods. Almost all refused point-blank to carry anything flammable. UPS are the only other company that almost got there, but it became too hard for the person in the sales dept and she just went silent and stopped corresponding.

Anyone casually posting aerosols and paints through the post is doing so illegally. If a company gets caught doing it there can be prosecutions (especially if it's intercepted on its way to an aircraft - several couriers use aeroplanes for hub to hub transport and vans for hub to door) or more likely the termination of a postal contract leaving us without means to sell to anyone.


Edit: Even sending Limited Quantities (which has a definition) by road means it comes under ADR rules, which involves driving training and fire extinguishers etc. It's not rocket science, but it's easier for the couriers to just prohibit the packages containing anything except letters.

Read the prohibitions list of any courier and you'll find that most stuff is prohibited.

Edited by jamieduff1981 on Monday 11th April 11:58

[bga]

Loose_Cannon said:

Royal Mail seem determined to self destruct and make themselves as unappealing as possible. It pains me to say that especially when you see these poor bds delivering parcels day and night in their own cars for these minimum wage cut-throat delivery firms.

A bit off-topic but it is the retailers & consumers who have demanded rock bottom delivery prices and services have adapted to meet this need.

[Higgs boson]

'plenty of ebay sellers doing it.

[egor110]

Loose_Cannon said:

Yes I can understand air mail, and possibly imports (as environmental regs on constituents vary from country to country) but domestic? Give it a rest.

Great idea about the magnets though - that might help me get some trim dye from the USA ;-)

Domestic mail is not just moved around by road they also fly stuff, hence the ruling.

[duckwhistle]

Jamieduff, How are the cans delivered to you ? The company may well be able to help.

[jamieduff1981]

duckwhistle said:

Jamieduff, How are the cans delivered to you ? The company may well be able to help.

By UPS, ironically! Again it's a business contract, packaged to ADR regulations*, which is the same as how we send them out except we use Parcelforce.

• Double skinned box, diamond class sticker and section 13 of MSDS outside, with absorbent material inside. When we send them out they're further secured within zip-lock bags but that's by the by.

For our international stockists, we send them packaged like this to dangerous goods specialist who repacks them to IATA regulations (which needs a valid certificate from a training course) and a load of paperwork filled in which they do for us. This service starts at approximately £180 for up to 10kg then costs roughly £20 extra for every 10kg thereafter for Europe or North America (Australia and Japan are a bit more still). As such, we can only send domestically to mainland UK for retail sales, and we send international customers to our dealer network abroad who import 1000+ at a time and amortize the high shipping cost more effectively.

[mattdaniels]

Loose_Cannon said:

Tried to order some touch up paint rattle cans through the post today and the dealer said no, the last few he had sent to customers they had been "intercepted" and destroyed by Royal Mail the Post Office as a hazardous product.

Couriers (inc Royal Mail (not the Post Office!)) tend to operate two lists of hazardous items - Restricted Goods and Prohibited Goods.

According to the RM website, paint aerosols are on their prohibited list for UK mail.

https://business.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/de...

[Loose_Cannon]

This issue seems to be ballooning internationally!

Given that such reactions are usually triggered by a number of incidents or some kind of biblical Bhopal/Chernobyl meltdown causing untold fatalities, what was the spur for this? I can't for the life of me remember the last time anyone was killed transporting aerosols, sniffing them maybe. This must be an over reaction surely, like the mobile phones on petrol forecourts malarkey.

[opieoilman]

We send loads of oil, aerosols and fuel treatments out with the Royal Mail and couriers. We can't send any aerosols or fuel treatments outside of mainland UK addresses as they are not allowed to be carried by air. Being Opie Oils, it's pretty obvious that we will be sending oils and most couriers are okay with that as we send enough parcels that they are glad of the business, but we have had some problems where Royal Mail have agreed that we can send oil, then they have destroyed it as they have deemed it hazardous (even though it isn't). I think what a lot of sellers do is take the risk of sending aerosols and paint with the Royal Mail as they can save a fair bit of money that way compared to couriers, but take the hit on lost goods if RM decide to destroy it.

As we send about 400 orders a day, the couriers are pretty good with that, but if someone wants to return something to us, pretty much all couriers don't want to know as soon as they find out it's oil, an aerosol or fuel treatment.

[iphonedyou]

OP is Banksy AICMFP.

[PAULJ5555]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Health-Beauty-Isopropyl-Ru...

I had this the other day from Amazon. Delivered fine it was only in a cardboard box no bigger than the bottle and had one thin layer of bubble wrap around it.

[soad]

Loose_Cannon said:

Royal Mail seem determined to self destruct and make themselves as unappealing as possible. It pains me to say that especially when you see these poor bds delivering parcels day and night in their own cars for these minimum wage cut-throat delivery firms.

I blame unions.