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 suggests providing as much information as possible when shipping hazmat to meet any rules and regulations related to their transport and checking with your carrier representative for carrier-specific requirements.

Regulatory compliance

Shipium does not validate hazmat shipments against regulatory thresholds (watt-hours, lithium content, packing group, packaging instruction codes, etc.) at the API or carrier-eligibility layer. Customers are responsible for ensuring shipments comply with all applicable U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), International Air Transport Association (IATA), and carrier-specific regulations. The carrier's own API may or may not validate at label-creation time, depending on the carrier.

Shipium supports the most common hazmat shipping pathways, including:

• Limited Quantity (LQ) and Limited Quantity Air (LQA) shipments. LQ is also known as ORMD, a legacy term phased out in January 2021. Common examples include cosmetics, perfumery products, and small consumer hazmat goods.
• Excepted Quantity (EQ) shipments. Small-volume hazmat under 49 CFR §173.4, eligible for reduced documentation; eligible on both ground and air.
• Lithium battery shipments. Including the Small Battery Exception for air (SBEA) and ground (SBEG), as well as Fully Regulated lithium battery shipments; common in electronics shipments.
• Generalized hazardous material. You can specify International Air Transport Association (IATA) and DOT details for any hazardous materials directly.

Carrier-specific guidance for limited quantity shipments

Some carriers handle limited quantity (LQ) shipments differently than full hazmat shipments, particularly for ground services. For example, FedEx Ground services do not support dangerous goods special services for LQ lithium batteries; these ship as regular ground shipments. See carrier-specific documentation in the Carrier Network section for details.

productDetails reference

The productDetails field within orderItemQuantities allows you to flag products with special shipping characteristics. Shipium uses these values to filter carrier options, apply appropriate handling, and trigger carrier-specific surcharges.

Accepted values

For the rule on combining hazmat tags within a single shipment, see Hazmat tag exclusivity under Usage notes below.

Usage notes

• Preferred terminology. Use limited_quantity (or lq) for LQ/ORM-D items. The value ormd is still accepted for backward compatibility, but limited_quantity is recommended for new implementations.
• Multiple values. You can pass multiple values in the array if a product has more than one special characteristic. For example, a perishable item that is also limited quantity hazmat:

"orderItemQuantities": [
  {
    "productId": "PROD-12345",
    "quantity": 1,
    "productDetails": ["limited_quantity", "perishable"]
  }
]

• Hazmat tag exclusivity. A shipment can include only one of the following hazmat tags: limited_quantity (or its alias ormd), limited_quantity_air, excepted_quantity, small_battery_exception_air, or small_battery_exception_ground. Shipments combining two or more of these tags fail validation. Non-hazmat tags such as perishable or bound_printed_matter can still be combined with one hazmat tag.
• Full hazmat shipments. For items requiring complete hazmat documentation beyond LQ classification, use the hazmatInfo object instead of or in addition to productDetails.

Specify hazardous materials using hazmatInfo

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 & Shipment Labels mechanism.

Shipium generally recommends including as much data as you have for hazmat information as requirements differ among carriers. At a minimum, though, the following fields should be provided in your shipping request: category, quantity, quantityType, quantityUnits, and containerType.

In addition to these and other item properties that are passed, such as productId, 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.

Emergency response info for hazmat shipments

When shipping hazardous materials, carriers may require a 24-hour emergency response phone number and contact details. Many companies use an Emergency Response Info Provider (ERIP) as their emergency contact rather than providing their own company phone number.

Shipium supports an optional emergencyResponseInfo object at the shipment level within shipmentParameters (or multiParcelShipmentParameters for multi-parcel shipments). This object allows you to specify emergency contact details that are transmitted to the carrier for hazmat shipments.

Examples

Hazmat example: Limited quantity (LQ)/ORMD via ground transport

This example shows an orderItemQuantities entry for a ground shipment that contains two items: one with no hazmat properties and one LQ/ORMD product. LQ/ORMD via ground does not require a hazmatInfo block; flagging the item with the limited_quantity productDetails tag is sufficient for carrier selection.

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

Hazmat example: Limited Quantity Air (LQA)

This example shows an orderItemQuantities entry for an air shipment containing one LQA item. LQA applies to Limited Quantity hazmat transported on air service methods under 49 CFR §172.315(b), the Y-mark pathway. Unlike LQ via ground, LQA requires a full hazmatInfo block on the item.

The required hazmatInfo fields for an LQA item are:

• hazmatId, the UN or ID number, such as UN1263
• properShippingName
• hazardClass
• packingGroup, one of i, ii, or iii
• transportMode, either passenger_and_cargo_aircraft or cargo_aircraft_only (ground is rejected for LQA)
• quantity, quantityType, and quantityUnits
• containerType
• numberOfInnerPackagings
• innerPackagingType
• outerPackagingType
• packingInstructionCode
• shipperDeclarationStatement, typically LQ_air or cargo_aircraft_only for LQA

Hazmat example: Excepted Quantity (EQ)

This example shows an orderItemQuantities entry for a shipment containing one EQ item. EQ applies to small-volume hazmat shipped under 49 CFR §173.4. EQ items are eligible for reduced documentation, exempt from carrier-side hazmat data transmission, and may ship by either ground or air.

Use the excepted_quantity productDetails tag.

The required hazmatInfo fields for an EQ item are:

• category, which must be defined; lithium shortcut categories such as contains_lithium_ion are rejected for EQ items
• hazmatId, the UN or ID number, such as UN1266
• properShippingName
• hazardClass
• packingGroup, one of i, ii, or iii
• transportMode, which can be either ground or air for EQ
• quantity, quantityType, and quantityUnits
• containerType
• shipperDeclarationStatement, typically EQ for EQ items

Hazmat example: Small Battery Exception (Air)

This example shows an orderItemQuantities entry for a shipment containing one SBEA item. SBEA applies to lithium cells and batteries below regulated thresholds, shipped with the Lithium Battery Mark on the outer packaging, under 49 CFR §173.185(c)(1)(iii). SBEA items may ship by either air or ground.

Use the small_battery_exception_air productDetails tag.