getting shippers to declare DGR (and to think....)
another normal day in the forwarder's office today:
client manufacturing semi-con equipment calls up today and books 15 tons of return machinery and spares (general cargo) to the u.s. west coast. sprinig cleaning of dead stock, i guess....
goods get back to the airport warehouse (i happen to be there) and note one crate damaged whilst unloading.
we dump the crate (a good 1 x 1 x 1 meters) onto the scale and the scale shoots through the roof at 1945kgs.....bit on the dense side and hence has us slightly puzzled.
no markings, etc which could have us trace this crate on the commercial invoice to figure out what kind of goods they are.
call to client clarifies that it is a magnet(of course not accompanied by dgr forms, not mentioned at the time of booking)
probing a bit further about what they think would happen if they held their good rolex to it (or put it close to electronic avionics / radar / etc) we get them thinking into the right direction.
dgr forms filled, seperate awb cut and off it goes, but not after a handful of asian carriers flat out refused to accept the booking saying that they do not carry magnets on their freighters.
had me a bit puzzled (but discussing DGR with even senior staff at some carriers is useless) as in my book dangerous goods are not really dangerous unless they are not declared or wrongly handled (read loaded in the case of the magnet).
these carriers actually 'invite' you to not declare the dangerous goods, as otherwise they would not carry them.