The goods included in the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code (IMDGC) are for the most part essential products for industry and modern living. They include, for example, fertilizers, phytopharmaceutical products, hospital gases, paints, bleaches and so forth.
The term dangerous goods also encompasses any empty, unwashed packaging that has previously contained goods classified as dangerous, unless it can be proven that all waste deposits have been removed from the packaging and that it has been purged of its vapours so as to nullify any hazard or has been filled with a substance not classified as dangerous.
Dangerous goods are classified, according to the hazards they present, into nine groups: explosive; gases; inflammable liquids; inflammable solids; oxidizing substances and organic peroxides; toxic and infectious substances; radioactive materials; corrosives and miscellaneous dangerous substances.
Royal Decree no. 145, of 20 January 1989, regulates the admission, handling and storage of dangerous goods in Spanish ports, conferring competences to port authorities to allow the admission, handling and regulation of these kinds of operations in port service areas.
As contemplated in the royal decree, admission procedures for dangerous goods begin with the presentation of an application for admission to the port authority and the harbour master’s office. Once documentation has been presented, the dockside operator (the person in charge of unloading and handling dangerous goods on behalf of the stevedoring company) accepts it. With current technological advances and for the purpose of simplifying and speeding up these procedures, the port authority has created a computerized management system for dangerous goods, which ensures fast and safe communications between all parties concerned.
Known as SALVIA, this new system for managing notification/authorization documents for dangerous goods came into effect in Santa Cruz de Tenerife Port on 1 March 2008.
Through the SALVIA programme, all the parties involved in the process interact, from the shipping agents to the terminals, including the port authority and harbour master’s office, thereby reducing the cost of procedures and monitoring of dangerous goods in Santa Cruz de Tenerife Port.
This application has also equipped port managers with the tools to track the type of dangerous goods and their location in the port at all times. It is therefore relatively easy to draw up a risk map, which is particularly useful in the event of an alert or emergency.
The introduction of this computer application has been a great success for the Tenerife Port Authority. By way of example, in 2007, Santa Cruz de Tenerife Port handled over ten million tons of dangerous goods, without recording any serious incident.