What are Salvage Drums?

When it comes to shipping dangerous goods, anything is possible. Imagine filling your dangerous goods into a drum, only to find out shortly after that there is a slow leak. Seems like a messy disaster, doesn’t it? One, you have to figure out the safest way to clean it up, and two you still need to figure out how to ship the drum once you figure out how to stop the leaking. This is where Salvage drums come to the rescue!

Salvage drums are designed to rescue you if you have leaky dangerous goods packaging. If your drum or combination packaging is leaking, salvage drums can be used to ship them to where they need to go. Salvage drums are structurally designed to contain leaking, damaged, or non-compliant packaging containing dangerous goods. You just have to safely place the leaking drum or packaging inside the salvage drum using proper PPE, close the drum, add cushioning or absorbent if necessary, and it is ready to ship or store the dangerous goods. One thing I must clarify here, a salvage drum is not an overpack, it is a UN regulated drum that is meant to be used to ship or store packaging with dangerous goods that have leaks in them.

Rules of Using Salvage Drums

Per 49CFR 173.3 (c), the salvage drum must be UN 1A2, 1B2, 1N2 or 1H2 tested and marked for Packing Group III or higher performance standards for liquids or solids as well as pass a leakproofness test of 20 kPa. Each drum should have necessary sufficient cushioning and absorption material to prevent excessive shifting of the damaged package and to eliminate the presence of any free liquid at the time the salvage drum is closed. When using cushioning and absorbent material in the drum, you must make sure it is compatible with the dangerous goods. Much like any UN rated packaging used to ship dangerous goods, each salvage drum must be marked with the proper shipping name of the dangerous good inside the packaging, hazard class labels, or any other applicable markings. In addition, the packaging must be marked “SALVAGE” and the lettering of the marking must be at least 12 mm (0.5 inches) high. It is also important that you choose the appropriate size salvage drum. You can figure this out by determining the diameter and height of the packaging that is leaking and choose a salvage drum that is large enough to contain it.

Our Salvage Drums

The salvage drums that we offer here at ICC have been tested to meet the UN performance packaging requirements. They are specifically designed to ship or store leaking packaging containing hazardous materials. The sizes we offer range from 8 gallons to 110 gallons. These drums are very easy to use as they come with a lever lock closure, so no additional tooling is needed. If you would like more information on our salvage drums, feel free to visit our website or call ICC The Compliance Center at 888.442.9628 (USA) or 888.977.4834 (Canada).

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