Post Office Revises Standards for Parcels Containing Hazardous Materials
The U.S. Postal Service is revising Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) 601.10 to adopt new mandatory marking standards for packages with mailable hazardous material that align with revised Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration requirements, it said in a Federal Register notice for publication Nov. 28. The changes also include terminology and categorization changes needed to respond to the pending elimination of the “Other Regulated Material (ORM)” category and the partial elimination of the “consumer commodity” category by the DOT.
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The mailable hazardous materials marking standards were added to the DMM in August 2012 for optional use by mailers, and they supplement previously authorized DMM marking standards for parcels containing such materials. The revision will require use of those markings on parcels intended for air and surface transportation, but the new standards will be deferred for parcels intended for surface transportation to coincide with the delayed implementation date for ground transportation provided by PHMSA (Jan. 1, 2013, for shipments intended for air shipment and Jan. 1, 2015, for those intended for surface transport).
The Postal Service will align its hazardous materials mailing requirements with those of PHMSA by requiring the marking standards on all parcels intended for air transport effective Jan. 1, 2013. The second part of the alignment with PHMSA will eliminate the optional ORM-D markings and categorization for hazardous materials intended for surface transportation effective Jan. 1, 2015.
Further information: Kevin Gunther, 202-268-7208.