About hazardous materials

Hazardous material (hazmat) is any substance that can pose an unreasonable risk to health, safety, and property when transported in commerce. Due to its potential safety concerns, hazmat often must meet packaging and labeling requirements set by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

Shipium handles shipping the most common types of hazmat, including:

• Limited quantities (LQ) products. LQ is also known as ORMD, although this term was phased out in January 2021. Examples include small cosmetics and some healthcare products.
• Lithium ion products. A common example is lithium ion batteries found in many electronics items, for which we simplify some details for you.
• Generalized hazardous material. You can specify International Air Transport Association (IATA) and DOT details for any hazardous materials directly.

Specify LQ/ORMD product for U.S. domestic shipping

As a shortcut, Shipium supports adding a productDetails array entry of "limited_quantity". See the LQ example below.

Specify hazardous materials (hazmat)

Hazmat information is provided within shipments as part of the orderItemProperties map, either using the standard Shipment construction or using the more popular Carrier and Method Selection with Label Single Call mechanism.

In addition to other item properties that are passed, such as productId and quantity, you can specify a set of hazmat-related properties to ensure that these products are properly handled at the carrier level and during carrier selection.

There are two ways to do this:

• For common hazmat classes, Shipium provides a shortcut mechanism and does much of the lookup on your behalf. The most common of these is the lithium ion classes for common electronics items, specified by the category property. The properties are included in the Pre-Configured Hazmat Properties section of this document.

• You can specify detailed hazardous materials properties using the properties defined in the Detailed Hazmat Properties section of this document and setting the category property to the value "defined".

Pre-configured hazmat properties

The following table includes properties for common hazmat classes covered by the shortcut mechanism.

Detailed hazmat properties

If your shipment contains hazardous materials that cannot be included using the above pre-configured interface, you can use the properties in the following table to specify the details and set the category property to the value "defined".

Examples

Non-hazmat example

This example in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) shows a sample orderItems entry for a shipment that contains no hazmat items.

"orderItemQuantities": [
  {
        "productId": "PRODUCTID001",
        "quantity": 1
    },
  {
        "productId": "PRODUCTID002",
        "quantity": 2
    },
]

Hazmat example: Limited quantity (LQ)/ORMD

This example in JSON shows an orderItems entry for a shipment that contains two items: one with no hazmat properties and one LQ/ORMD product.

"orderItemQuantities": [
  {
        "productId": "PRODUCTID001",
        "quantity": 1
    },
  {
        "productId": "PRODUCTID002",
        "quantity": 2,
        "productDetails": ["limited_quantity"]
    }
]

Hazmat example: Product containing lithium ion batteries

This example in JSON shows an orderItems entry for a shipment that contains two items: one with no hazmat properties and one with a lithium ion battery.

"orderItemQuantities": [
    {
        "productId": "PRODUCTID001",
        "quantity": 1
    },
    {
        "hazmat": true,
        "hazmatInfo": {
            "category": "contains_lithium_ion",
            "quantity": 1.0,
            "quantityType": "gross",
            "quantityUnits": "g"
        },
        "productId": "PRODUCTIDHAZ1",
        "quantity": 3
    }
],

Hazmat example: Detailed hazmat properties

This example in JSON shows an orderItemQuantities entry for a shipment containing two items, one with a chromic acid solution and one with no hazmat properties. Note that category is set to "defined".

"orderItemQuantities": [
    {
        "hazmat": true,
        "hazmatInfo": {
            "category": "defined",
            "hazmatId": "UN1755",
            "containerType": "aluminum_jerrican",
            "packingGroup": "ii",
            "properShippingName": "Chromic Acid Solution",
            "hazardClass": "8",
            "subsidiaryClasses": [
                "8.1"
            ],
            "quantity": 5.0,
            "quantityType": "net",
            "quantityUnits": "l"
        },
        "productDetails": [],
        "productId": "PRODUCTID001",
        "quantity": 3
    }
],

Hazmat example: Dry ice

This example in JSON shows an orderItemQuantities entry for a shipment that contains dry ice as part of its packaging. In this example, the package contains 2 pounds of dry ice associated with PRODUCTID001.

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Multiple items in a shipment containing dry ice

You may have multiple items that are being cooled by a single unit of dry ice in a shipment. However, you only need to associate the amount of dry ice in the package with a single item in that package. In the example below, for instance, both items might be kept cool by the single unit of dry ice, but only one of the items includes information associated with the dry ice amount.

        "orderItemQuantities": [
            {
                "productDetails": [],
                "productId": "PRODUCTID001",
                "quantity": 1,
                "hazmat": true,
                "hazmatInfo": {
                    "category": "dry_ice",
                    "quantity": 2,
                    "quantityUnits": "lb",
                    "quantityType": "gross",
                    "containerType": "other"
                }
            },
            {
                "productDetails": [],
                "productId": "PRODUCTID002",
                "quantity": 1,
                "hazmat": false,
            },
        ],

FAQ

Q: Are there any weight restrictions for shipping items as limited quantity (LQ)?

A: Yes. An LQ package's maximum gross weight is limited to 66 pounds.