[time-nuts] [OT] HazMat

Robert Darlington rdarlington at gmail.com
Mon Sep 7 15:17:18 UTC 2009


I had to deal with the same thing when it came to ordinary mineral oil and
the US Government (Los Alamos National Laboratory).  I built a rather large
gadget to simulate oil flows for some ultrasound experiments so that we
could bring the oil field to the scientists rather than the other way
around.  It used mineral oil and water and sand and nitrogen.  LANL had a
problem with mineral oil because it's flammable, toxic, and causes skin
irritation, and is safe to eat (ever see those shiny moist muffin tops)?  We
ended up emptying about 7 or 8 pharmacies and a Walmart from their stock of
Johnson&Johnson Baby Oil (same thing, plus a fragrance added) just to get
around the paperwork.  No amount of telling them that it's safe enough to
rub on a baby's butt would convince them so we had to resort to these
guerrilla tactics just to get 30 gallons of oil over to the lab.

-Bob

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 2:15 AM, Dave Baxter <dave at uk-ar.co.uk> wrote:

> Just to illustrate the madness these people instigate...
>
> We can't even ship by courier a well protected (in a tri-wall box, in
> dense chippings, in a wooden crate) a 5 gal' drum of Multitherm PG-1
> thermal transfer fluid, a refined "Pharmaceutical Grade" mineral oil, in
> the UK, because "It's Dangerous"..  Without more paperwork costs than
> the material itself is worth!
>
> Quite why, when it's intended used among others, is in food processing
> plants where it may come into contact with the food, and is deemed to be
> non toxic, and was flown over by regular air freight to get to the UK,
> then by regular road transport to get to us in the first place.
>
> Notwithstanding the 50+ gallons of Diesel fuel in the unprotected tank
> on the side of the truck carying it, that would make more of a mess and
> disolve the road surface!...
>
> So what do we do?...
>
> Put unprotected drums in the back of the car, and drive them there
> ourselves!...   Nothing illegal in that we are told.
>
> Likewise, we can't return dead TWT's to the US for re-manufacture,
> becuse they contain BeO, the airlines just won't take them.   We have
> the special packing the replacement tube came in, and they flew over by
> regular air freight in the first place.  For a small company, paying for
> the "special flights" is more than the cost of the replacement tube!  We
> have therefore a small stock of sick/dead TWT's.
>
> Silly isn't it.   Over hear we call such people "Jobsworths"...   You
> can figure out the rest.
>
> Dave B.
>
>
>
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