Thursday, October 23, 2014

Lithium Battery Article by Alex Lennane, plus my 2 cents



Link to the Article:  lithium batteries



“Governments should have a stronger oversight on counterfeit battery makers. The focus on counterfeit goods tends to be on luxury products, handbags and so on. But this is about safety."


*****  My 2 Cents *****


This is one point which I often bring up.  The legally tested, packaged, prepared, documented and tendered shipments of lithium batteries are not the greatest risk.  


The risk comes from the sale and transport or these clandestine or counterfeit batteries which are sold via the internet and transported, often undeclared in post or other means of express transport.  


"While it is hard to determine how many lithium batteries are carried on aircraft – partly because counterfeits go undetected – the market is growing fast." 

This is the hard truth, It is not easy to detect these in transport.  The governments where these shipments originate, do what they can, but the problem is too big and too varied for them to be effective.  The more restriction you put on these items, the more you feed into the problem as shippers either go underground to avoid the restrictions or they just tender incorrectly due to ignorance of the complicated regulations. 


This is where the focus needs to be.  How to we stop this problem from causing the next incident?   

No comments:

Post a Comment