What is the difference between dangerous chemicals and dangerous goods

I. Concept and presentation department

        According to the Regulations on the Safety Management of Hazardous Chemicals (Order No. 591 of The State Council of the People’s Republic of China), hazardous chemicals refer to highly toxic chemicals and other chemicals that have the properties of poisoning, corrosion, explosion, combustion and combustion-supporting, etc., and are harmful to human body, facilities and environment. Dangerous chemicals in the catalog of hazardous chemicals (hereinafter referred to as the “directory”) as the criterion, the directory will be published by the supervision and administration of production safety department of the State Council jointly with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology under the State Council, public security, environmental protection, health, transportation and other departments, according to the identification and classification standard of dangerous chemicals characteristics determine, publishing, and timely adjust. Regarding the classification of hazardous chemicals, the Catalogue adopts the series of national standards of The Specification for The Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GB 30000) released in 2013. The technical content of this series of standards is basically consistent with the Uniform Global System for the Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (Fourth Revision) (GHS).

        The dangerous goods classification and commodity code (GB 6944) regulation, dangerous goods is a explosive, flammable, toxic, infection, corrosive, radioactive and other hazardous characteristics, in the transport, storage, production, management, use and disposal, easy to cause life or personal injury, property damage or pollution of the environment and need special protection of material and goods. Our country dangerous goods confirmed principles mainly according to “the dangerous goods name list” (GB 12268) and the classification of dangerous goods and commodity code (GB 6944), the two national standard put forward by the Ministry of Transport and organizing the revised release, technical content and the United Nations “about the proposal for dangerous goods transport, regulation model (TDG) are basically identical.

II. Classification

        The Catalogue divides the hazardous characteristics of hazardous chemicals into 3 categories of physical hazards, health hazards and environmental hazards and 28 items (the sixth revision of GHS has expanded the hazardous chemicals into 29 categories and added desensitized explosives, but currently the confirmation principle of hazardous chemicals in China only includes 28 categories). That is, chemicals containing one or more of the 28 hazards are dangerous chemicals.

        Dangerous goods can be divided into nine categories, including explosives, gas, flammable liquid, flammable solid, easy spontaneous combustion substance, water release of flammable gas, oxidizing substances and organic peroxides, toxic substances and infectious substances, radioactive, corrosive substances, miscellaneous dangerous substance and items including environmental hazards. Goods are dangerous goods when they contain one or more of these hazards.

III. Contrast of difference

        Hazardous chemicals are identified mainly on the basis of long-term or short-term exposure to human beings and the environment in production, storage, circulation, transportation and other links. The main supervision departments are the Ministry of Emergency Management, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, etc. The identification of dangerous goods is mainly based on the harm to human beings and the environment shown in the process of transportation, emphasizing the short-term harm. The supervision department is mainly the relevant competent departments of transportation, such as the Ministry of Transport.

        In daily life, dangerous chemicals and dangerous goods are mostly the same, but some dangerous chemicals are not dangerous goods, and some dangerous goods are not dangerous chemicals. Hazardous chemicals are not classified as dangerous goods mainly because many sub-chronic health and environmental hazards (carcinogenicity, reproductive toxicity, etc.) are not included in the classification criteria for dangerous goods, such as boric acid. Dangerous goods are not classified as dangerous chemicals, which are divided into the following three categories: the goods are dangerous goods, not chemical substances, such as automobile airbags; The transport conditions of the goods are special, such as high temperature transport; The cargo is not among the 28 hazards of hazardous chemicals, such as lithium batteries.

IV. Customs Control requirements

        According to the law of the People’s Republic of China on import and export commodity inspection “and its implementation regulations, the hazardous chemical materials safety management regulations on the import and export of dangerous chemicals and the announcement of the packing inspection of the regulatory issues related to (the General Administration of Customs announcement no. 129, 2020), and other relevant provisions, in the catalogue of the products belong to legal inspection goods. For imported hazardous chemicals, the customs adopts the supervision mode of “batch inspection + batch sampling test” at the port. The consignee or his agent of imported hazardous chemicals should fill in relevant matters and apply for inspection when declaring at the customs. The customs shall adopt the supervision requirements of “inspection at the place of origin + inspection at the port” for export hazardous chemicals, and the consignor or his agent shall apply for inspection to the Customs at the place of origin.

        According to the law of the People’s Republic of China on import and export commodity inspection “and its implementation regulations, an enterprise manufacturing packagings for dangerous export goods, and shall apply to the customs of origin of dangerous goods packaging containers, performance appraisal, the export of dangerous goods production enterprises, shall apply to the customs of origin of dangerous goods packaging containers use identification. The Customs carries out “origin inspection” on the packages of export dangerous goods. After passing the inspection, the Customs issues the inspection results of the performance of the packages for transport of exit dangerous goods and the identification results of the packages for transport of exit dangerous goods respectively, commonly known as “two certificates”.

        In addition, it needs special reminder that the safety management of the production, storage, use, operation and transportation of hazardous chemicals shall conform to the provisions of the Regulations on the Safety Management of Hazardous Chemicals. Hazardous chemicals, whether included in the catalogue of legal inspection or not, must be submitted to the Customs for inspection and application for inspection in accordance with the law. Import and export hazardous chemicals used as food and food additives shall comply with the relevant provisions on food safety.

Article source：Xiao er of customs affairs