Well said EB. Considering how cheap jars, drums etc. are in quantity, there's no excuse for not using them. For anything hazardous a placcy bag simply isn't good enough .... imagine bags of KClO3 and S in the same consignment bursting!
Firstly, it's against the law to ship anything in class 5 with anything in class 4/3 in the same box. Any legal company/supplier would adhere to the legislation and not do silly things like that. The legislation regarding the shipping of hazardous goods is vast, any company that handles, sells or carries any hazardous goods are by law obliged to employ the services of a DGSA. Expensive but they act as a ?know all?, and aid the legal and safe operation of a company
There are exemptions for shipping small quantities of hazardous goods but the rules are very complicated, i.e. different chemicals have different maximum weights per pack and the mixed packets rules are like a game of chess.
Also labelling of hazardous goods is governed by at least six major pieces of legislation. It makes me laugh when irresponsible sellers on eBay say ?Will be shipped with MSDS?. This is illegal under the CHIP legislation, all hazardous goods sold to the public are by law required to be labelled properly (not labelled incorrectly and sent with a ripped off MSDS), MSDS?s are only intended for professional end users. KNO3.com is one of the worst offenders of this. They do not label any of their products correctly.
The shipping of hazardous goods is covered by the ADR (a European piece of legislation) and the Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road Regulations 1996 here in the UK. All the legislation makes it really expensive to sell chemicals. Under these two pieces of law there is another set of labelling rules, getting complicated enough? Well the list goes on and on and on.
There are plenty of incentives for people to sell chemicals illegally, profit being hit by legislation is not something all people find acceptable, and so they break the law.
If you want to sell everything in bottles and drums you?d be in for a shock. They are really expensive, large drums (UN approved) are upwards of ?40 (in bulk) and CHIP approved bottles are upwards of ?6 each (unless you buy in silly bulk and then they come down to about ?1 each). Normal ?placcy bag?s are the commonly accepted way of shipping hazardous goods (classes 4, 5 and 9). As long as your ?placcy bag? is CHIP compliant (i.e. really strong) there really should be no problem unless you stabbed it. But then again if you stabbed a plastic bottle it would split.
Bottom line is, if you want to sell chemicals, you either do it properly (and take a kick in the balls over the old profit margin, or sell at ridiculous prices), or break all the laws. KNO3.com breaks the law and sells at ridiculous prices (what?s? going on there???). The only real way to stamp out illegal/unsafe suppliers is to buy from companies that adhere to the law. This may or may not be more expensive, but in the long run it improves the safety of everyone. I can cite examples of buying from legal companies actually being cheaper.
The main benefit of not supporting illegal chemical suppliers is we do not risk further legislation making life a misery for all. Illegal suppliers are far more likely to sell to terrorists or children, leading to accidents/incidents, and ultimately more laws restricting the sale of chemicals. And that for us means no more hobby.
