"The liquid leaked from a one-gallon container of “Amazing Liquid Fire,” a drain cleaner, during a flight from Louisville, Ky. to Boulder, Colo. ... The FAA alleged that the shipment was not properly packaged, was not accompanied by a proper declaration stating the hazardous nature of its contents." 9 employees injured.
"Amazing Liquid Fire" is concentrated sulfuric acid. Amazon review: "It eats through everything except plastic and porcelain. When you use this you have to be careful when you pour it down the drain it ate through the metal ring around the drain hole..... Unfortunately it did not unclog my drains, guess I have to call a plumber."
MSDS info: Very hazardous in case of skin contact (corrosive, irritant, permeator), of eye contact (irritant, corrosive), of ingestion, of inhalation. Liquid or spray mist may produce tissue damage particularly on mucous membranes of eyes, mouth and
respiratory tract. Skin contact may produce burns. Inhalation of the spray mist may produce severe irritation of respiratory tract, characterized by coughing, choking, or shortness of breath. Severe over-exposure can result in death. Inflammation of
the eye is characterized by redness, watering, and itching....
Also, sulfuric acid in contact with a long list of other chemicals is explosive.
"Amazing Liquid Fire" ships in a 1 gallon plastic jug. You can't even ship that via UPS Ground. Above 500ml, you have to use hazardous material freight.
Come on, Amazon, you have databases. You should know which products are hazardous. If the vendor can't give you an MSDS for it, maybe you shouldn't be shipping it.
Looking at the Amazon listings it looks like it is sold by an Amazon vendor. That suggests an interesting weakness where Amazon doesn't enforce shipping rules on its third party sellers. Also per the comments the "product" is $10 at the hardware store and this person is selling it for $40 at Amazon so that is an interesting business.
And like you I was amazed that it was sold with lye. Kind of makes me wonder if this stuff was riding in the cargo hold of some jet I was flying across country. It could easily cause serious problems.
Oh, and Amazon's recommendation engine shows "Frequently bought together - Amazing Liquid Fire and Red Hot Devil Lye." If you mix those two, you are going to have a really bad day.
Every warning you receive is the accumulation of human stupidity, malice, or both. Someone, sometime, somewhere did something that made them think to warn you too. I guess its a form of fame.
I imagine we'll see less of this going forward, as Amazon moves towards local warehouses and Amazon Prime Now one-hour delivery, in lieu of shipping everything by air using UPS/FedEx.
Incidentally, I've seen Amazon err the other way on lithium batteries. I have ordered things like LiFePO4 cells or devices with lithium ion batteries inside and they come with a sticker that says "PRIMARY LITHIUM BATTERY, NOT FOR TRANSPORT ON PASSENGER AIRCRAFT" which apparently doesn't apply to lithium ion batteries. Better safe than sorry, though, I suppose. (I have also ordered primary lithium batteries... and those also get the sticker correctly.)
I've had them ship a flashlight that came with an alkaline battery labeled as if it had a lithium battery.
I've also found that they wouldn't ship the 8 oz version of a popular homebrewing sanitizer (Star San -- it's phosphoric acid and a strong detergent) to my address, but they shipped the 32 oz version just fine.
As a customer, the annoying thing is that they don't make it easy to request a review of this bogus database info.
Amazon is known by third party FBA sellers for shipping out poorly packaged items. They then ding your seller account when your stuff arrives broke.
This doesn't surprise me in the least.
From the article:
“Amazon has a history of violating the Hazardous Materials Regulations,” the agency said in a news release. From February 2013 to September 2015, Amazon was found to have violated such regulations 24 times, the FAA said, adding that the agency would continue to investigate the company’s compliance with air safety regulations.
Third party vendors doing sketchy stuff with shipping does not profit Amazon enough for this to be part of their overall business plan. 350k is definitely only a warning shot, but in this case, the interests of the FAA, Amazon, and public safety are all in fairly close alignment.
It goes a little deeper than that. I'd assume Amazon meant no harm (business, personal, or otherwise), but Americans have a vested interest in the FAA doing its job; this sort of mistake can down an airplane. If the cleaning agent had leaked in-flight instead of in-handling and found its way to something that'll react nicely with sulfuric acid (read: lots of things), you now have a scenario where an airplane is coming out of the sky in a less-than-controlled fashion, possibly over a populated area.
I'm pretty comfortable with the FAA using strict methods to avoid that scenario.
Based on the decline of Amazon UPS deliveries over the past couple years, UPS is becoming less and less important to them. For a while, Ontrac was doing most of my Amazon deliveries, but more recently, Amazon's own delivery service has been delivering most of my orders (not sure if they are really Amazon drivers or if they are contractors). UPS is still doing some deliveries (seems to be only products that aren't available in nearby warehouses), but not nearly as many as they used to. When Amazon first started using Ontrac, Ontrac's delivery service was so horrible that I think Amazon did it only so they could squeeze more money from UPS and Fedex, though Ontrac has improved a lot since then.
Recently Amazon has starting using the USPS to deliver more packages (or at least the last-mile delivery), and that service has been disappointing, I can usually count on a USPS package being delivered at least a day late, and more than once, it hasn't shown up at all, despite being marked as "delivered at front door".
In any case, while I would think that any unhappiness between UPS and Amazon would be resolved through their contracts, I doubt that UPS wants to rock the boat with Amazon, because even a small piece of the Amazon delivery pie is a lot of deliveries. So in this case, where workers health and safety is in question, it's good that the government stepped in to prevent UPS's desire to keep a customer happy from getting in the way of their worker's welfare.
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
"Amazing Liquid Fire" is concentrated sulfuric acid. Amazon review: "It eats through everything except plastic and porcelain. When you use this you have to be careful when you pour it down the drain it ate through the metal ring around the drain hole..... Unfortunately it did not unclog my drains, guess I have to call a plumber."
MSDS info: Very hazardous in case of skin contact (corrosive, irritant, permeator), of eye contact (irritant, corrosive), of ingestion, of inhalation. Liquid or spray mist may produce tissue damage particularly on mucous membranes of eyes, mouth and respiratory tract. Skin contact may produce burns. Inhalation of the spray mist may produce severe irritation of respiratory tract, characterized by coughing, choking, or shortness of breath. Severe over-exposure can result in death. Inflammation of the eye is characterized by redness, watering, and itching....
Also, sulfuric acid in contact with a long list of other chemicals is explosive.
"Amazing Liquid Fire" ships in a 1 gallon plastic jug. You can't even ship that via UPS Ground. Above 500ml, you have to use hazardous material freight.
Come on, Amazon, you have databases. You should know which products are hazardous. If the vendor can't give you an MSDS for it, maybe you shouldn't be shipping it.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|9 years ago|reply
And like you I was amazed that it was sold with lye. Kind of makes me wonder if this stuff was riding in the cargo hold of some jet I was flying across country. It could easily cause serious problems.
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaysocks|9 years ago|reply
wth is in this guy's drains?!
[+] [-] amalag|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] serge2k|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protomyth|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emp_zealoth|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ancap|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a13n|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrischen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drizzzler|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbhl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protomyth|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scurvy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|9 years ago|reply
UPS has an incredibly detailed document here about the regulations: https://www.ups.com/media/news/en/us_lithium_battery_regulat...
[+] [-] mmagin|9 years ago|reply
I've also found that they wouldn't ship the 8 oz version of a popular homebrewing sanitizer (Star San -- it's phosphoric acid and a strong detergent) to my address, but they shipped the 32 oz version just fine.
As a customer, the annoying thing is that they don't make it easy to request a review of this bogus database info.
[+] [-] nommm-nommm|9 years ago|reply
This doesn't surprise me in the least.
From the article:
“Amazon has a history of violating the Hazardous Materials Regulations,” the agency said in a news release. From February 2013 to September 2015, Amazon was found to have violated such regulations 24 times, the FAA said, adding that the agency would continue to investigate the company’s compliance with air safety regulations.
[+] [-] Dr_tldr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Apofis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tn13|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fixermark|9 years ago|reply
I'm pretty comfortable with the FAA using strict methods to avoid that scenario.
[+] [-] Johnny555|9 years ago|reply
Recently Amazon has starting using the USPS to deliver more packages (or at least the last-mile delivery), and that service has been disappointing, I can usually count on a USPS package being delivered at least a day late, and more than once, it hasn't shown up at all, despite being marked as "delivered at front door".
In any case, while I would think that any unhappiness between UPS and Amazon would be resolved through their contracts, I doubt that UPS wants to rock the boat with Amazon, because even a small piece of the Amazon delivery pie is a lot of deliveries. So in this case, where workers health and safety is in question, it's good that the government stepped in to prevent UPS's desire to keep a customer happy from getting in the way of their worker's welfare.
[+] [-] HillRat|9 years ago|reply
(Edit: Not caustic, but evidently highly acidic. Even better!)
[+] [-] gumby|9 years ago|reply
http://www.wired.com/2013/12/amazon_ups/
[+] [-] swehner|9 years ago|reply