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28Apr/09Off

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What Are The DOT HAZMAT Classifications

When a particular business expands beyond its local boundaries, it becomes essential for a business house to transport the products from one place or country to another. Most of the people think that the transportation process always involves the movement of safe materials, but it is not really true. There are several companies in domestic as well as foreign lands that utilize hazardous materials as the ingredient for their products. To make the dangerous and hazardous ingredients available to those companies, they need to be moved. The transportation officials, therefore, are required to be trained in order to make sure that these goods reach their destination safely. DOT and IATA training sessions along with others are organized to train the employees to the utmost possible extent.

The chances of crashes are more when the dangerous goods and hazardous materials are moved from one place to another. The Department of Transportation or DOT takes the responsibility to ensure safe and sound transportation of products via national roads and highways. The mishaps related to the transportation of goods and products pose a great threat to the environment which is the habitat of both flora and fauna as well as the human beings. To assure that these transportation would not affect the livelihood of the inhabitants of the environment, DOT training sessions held for the employees serve to be very helpful.

The Department of Transportation or DOT classifies the hazardous materials into several categories. Some of these classifications have been mentioned below:

Explosives: According to the DOT definition of explosives, they are the chemical mixtures formulated to create an explosion as soon as triggered. The explosives are ranked and rated by this department from one to six, which indicates the severeness of these compounds. The explosives have been observed to be releasing huge amount of energy through gas and heat and hence they are not allowed to be transported without proper certification. Orange symbol on a vehicle signifies the transportation of the explosives.
Gases: The next on the HAZMAT classification made by DOT are the gases that are considered to be a mixture stored under high pressure. They can either be flammable and even non-flammable. The hazardous elements with partial pressurization also fall under this category. To signify that a vehicle contains gases for transportation, three distinct colors are used. Red for highly flammable mixtures, green for non-flammable inert gases and third is white for toxic gases.
Flammable liquids: Flammable liquids, according to DOT, include a substance with a low flashpoint that can cause it to ignite at temperature below the level of 130 degree F. Bright red is the color with a liquid sign indicate its transportation.
Oxidizers: The compounds that release huge amount of oxygen at a specific condition is defined as an oxidizer, which is the next on DOT HAZMAT classification.

Some more DOT HAZMAT classifications include radioactive materials, poisons, corrosives, etc. However, along with the Department of Transportation training programs for movement of dangerous goods via roadways, other training sessions are also held. These include IMDG for transportation via ocean, IATA for movement of HAZMAT materials by air, etc.

About the Author

Steve Decosta is a freelancer. He writes articles on hazardous materials management and IATA .For more information on them he suggest to visit http://www.learnhazmat.com/ .