ABSTRACT

The United Nations (UN) has established guidelines for identifying hazardous materials that one transports from one country to another. The Department of Transportation (DOT) regulates the interstate transportation and marking of hazardous materials, including those regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration. In the US, the responsibility for identifying and regulating hazardous chemicals lies with several government agencies. A good reference source for the UN four-digit identification numbers is the Emergency Response Guide of the US Department of Transportation. DOT regulations are intended to promote the uniform enforcement of laws regarding the interstate movement of hazardous materials. Like the UN system, DOT has classified hazardous materials according to their primary danger and assigned standardized symbols to identify the classes. A corrosive material is any liquid or solid that causes visible destruction or irreversible alterations in human skin tissue at the site of contact, or a liquid that has a severe corrosion rate on steel.