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USPS To Ban International Shipping On Lithium Ion Powered Gadgetry
sl4shd0rk writes "Apparently the USPS is enacting a ban on the international shipment of all devices containing Lithium Ion batteries. The ban is expected to lift in January of 2013. It seems like this would drive more business away from the already floundering USPS financial situation. The article focuses on the shipment of items out of the U.S., but doesn't mention whether the same ban will apply to purchasing these items on eBay from overseas sources."
why?
The very USPS page that is linked to from this summary says that batteries that are in devices are generally exempt from this. Essentially you can ship all the iPods/iPads/iPhones you want. It is external (ie not built-in) batteries that have additional restrictions, though those are not very severe.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This is an issue with International Postal Union and aviation authorities:
MEDIA STATEMENT ON Outbound International Mailing of Lithium Batteries
REACTIVE ONLY — FOR IMMEDIATE USE
Until January 2013, the Postal Service will not be able to accept packages containing lithium batteries and electronic devices containing lithium batteries addressed to international destinations. This includes mail destined to, or from, APO (Army Post Office), FPO (Fleet Post Office) and DPO (Diplomatic Post Office) locations.
This change is required by the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Universal Postal Union (UPU), both of which currently prohibit lithium batteries in mail shipments that are carried on international commercial air transportation.
So it is a) hopefully temporary b) because the hazardous little bombs are hazardous little bombs and c) everything is complicated these days.
So, just cram those AAA batteries into you iPhones and wait it out.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
As long as our currency is on, near, or above par with the US dollar, most sensible canadians will order stuff from the US and use USPS to deliver it, since UPS and the like are really just crooked extortionists. How their extortionist techniques are legal, I just don't know.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Oh wait, it's the other way around. Phew! I was scared there for a second. And, first post?
Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
I don't recall hearing much in the way of incidents involving lithium-containing batteries combusting during shipping. This leads me to wonder which of the following is going on. Is it:
1) A response to actual incidents?
2) An over-reaction to the potential of an accident, much like the no-electronic-gadgets rule on airplanes?
3) Something more sinister involving patents and/or protectionism?
Given the USPS's boneheaded management style (e.g. you still can't buy first-class postage on their site, only the much more expensive Priority and Express), I'm thinking option #2, but that's just speculation
Help find a cure for cancer. Join the [H]orde
don't rogres then you can get us directv if you are willing to do it under the table.
The article focuses on the shipment of items out of the U.S., but doesn't mention whether the same ban will apply to purchasing these items on eBay from overseas sources
I'm sure every eBay seller and buyer will notify the USPS of the exact contents of their border-crossing packages. And the USPS can tell if they don't. And the TSA is a worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." Feynman
The very USPS page that is linked to from this summary says that batteries that are in devices are generally exempt from this. Essentially you can ship all the iPods/iPads/iPhones you want. It is external (ie not built-in) batteries that have additional restrictions, though those are not very severe.
Was the "good job not reading" a reference to yourself? Oh, the irony!
From the linked article (emphasis mine):
According to the USPS, they will prohibit shipping of lithium batteries and any device containing them effective May 16.
And on the USPS page for the restriction, the USPS anticipates that after 1 January 2013 people will be able to resume mailing devices containing lithium batteries to overseas destinations. And that shipping such devices is banned from May 16 this year.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Don't rogres? Don't he? He does!
Then you can get us directv! How will you get us it?
Under the table, I see. I prefer to watch TV from a a sofa, not under a table.
Your English, it is teh suck to the point nobody understands you. Please take some classes before you come back.
If vendors have to airfreight electrically powered items without their batteries, this is a good thing.
Why?
Because it means the batteries will have to be shipped separately, which means:
they will need to be user-installable, which means:
they will be user replaceable.
No longer will you have to replace kit simply because the battery no longer recharges.
The USPS is struggling because they've been required by a vindictive right-wing to maintain an absurd 75-year pension plan commitment, basically they are being forced to fully fund pension plans for employees who haven't even been born yet.
If they were simply required to do business under the same rules as their competitors, they'd be kicking UPS' punk ass raw.
So, just for clarity let's make sure everyone understands that the USPS is being deliberately engineered to fail by the same vandals and saboteurs who are deliberately engineering our economy to fail.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Already enjoying some Canadian beer I see :-P
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The first thing to do is to shoot all the lawyers...
Meanwhile a domestic shipper just sent to me, though the USPS's occasionally jam-prone high-speed sorting equipment, 6 bare CR2032's, taped to a single letter sheet in a 1st class envelope, with no other padding or protection other than the individual poly zip-locks they were in.
Common sense would go a long way here, folks.
... as it appears that, well, lithium batteries are in fact accidents waiting to happen.
The gadgets industry is to be blamed here. They own us safer batteries!
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
And Fast Company is whining that the USPS is overreacting because they refuse to ship a product that randomly catches fire and blows up? And sets off other batteries in the same shipment?
The FAA has a whole site on aircraft fires. All their lithium battery documents appear there. Here are the current US battery rules for air transportation. Phone batteries usually aren't big enough to be a problem, but as battery sizes move up from "small" to "medium" (laptop batteries) the restrictions get tougher.
The real news here is that someone somewhere was apparently shipping products OUT of the united states.
Sounds like the CD I received in the mail once, in a plain envelope, with no jewel case, and no padding. More accurately, what I received was shards of a CD.
What does a flat fish have to do wit the USPS financial situation??
It is not a UPS rule, it is an international civil aviation rule. No lithium batteries in mail shipments on international commercial flights.
Just because you didn't hear of it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Although official conclusions are not out yet, it is strongly believed that UPS Air flight 6 crashed due to a lithium battery fire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6
There are also other flights where lithium ion fires are suspected but not anywhere near conclusively proven, like Asiana Air 991 linked in that article.
Talk about paranoia. Why do people find it so hard to believe someone is doing their job instead of just being out to inconvenience them?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
allow the UPSP to be more like a bank ala European countries.
What? You think they would be more corrupt and incompetent than Wall Street bankers (that should be in freaking prison)?
The USPS press release can be read here: Publication 52 Revision: Lithium Battery — Update.
In the intro it says:
So it's both primary and secondary cells which are banned – and the decision was forced on the USPS by the UPU and ICAO (the latter, presumably, because of the recent incident where a cargo plane fell out of the sky after a crate of lithium ion batteries caught fire at 35,000ft and couldn't be extinguished.)
Electronics that don't have battery compartments and no standards for rechargeable batteries that they contain.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The sooting will almost surely not help, since ICAO rules are mainly created by engineers and pilots.
By what the GP quoted, the ban is there because USPS uses comercial passenger flights to transport their cargo, and ICAO won't allow one to transport things that may explode on passenger flights.
Rethinking email
It is an ICAO rule. That means that a body of technical people, from dozens of different countries all agreed on that rule. Yeah, you won't find the proceeds published, as some members don't like that, but it is quite hard to get dozens of different countries to unanimously agree on some protectionist procedure.
Rethinking email
read this:
http://about.usps.com/postal-bulletin/2012/pb22336/html/updt_004.htm
secondly note how this some how doesn't impact corporations.
I suspect this is implemented because the USPS doesn't operate it's own fleet of jets. They contract with commercial airlines. And sine lithium batteries have been the cause of two airline crashes, they don't want to rick killing 100's of people.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's all crap, a politically strategic move by the republicans in their unending attempts to allow their buddies to privatize each and every government function. They slammed thru a ridiculous edict forcing the USPS to PRE-FUND their retirement pool for almost a century called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act — an incredible piece of ugliness requiring the agency to PRE-PAY the health care benefits not only of current employees, but also of all employees who'll retire during the next 75 years. Yes, that includes employees who're not yet born!
The more you know...
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/02-0
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It was a tongue-in-cheek remark, but nevertheless, show me how a bunch of engineers and pilots can dictate USPS regulations without lawyers being involved somewhere, and I'll concede your point. And ICAO IS a UN sponsored org.
You use a tracked shipping service. The people handling the package know that if it disappears at their station, the fact will be recognized.
The complaints may have disappeared because your customers can't plausibly claim that the item never arrived, or because the shippers can't steal it.
Removing cheek more thoroughly, explosions per se is not the real problem here, although messy, and I suppose you could imagine circumstance where the meager release of a laptop battery could bomblike enough to cause serious damage in a strategically placed sparrow's fart sort of way. The real issue is the extreme reactivity of lithium metal, which is sufficient for self ignition in air, water, etc. Not sure how much unreacted Li there is in Li-ion batts, though. I'll defer to those who've studied the matter fully. It appears howver that current USPS seem to cover the hazard already. The ban seems to be just hoop-jumping CYA behavior on the part of USPS, and I'm wondering why. Seems like enforcement efforts might be a better step, esp. amidst all the security state hysteria.
There will be lawyers at some point, but they won't be dictating the rules.
Of course. Why is that important?
Rethinking email
You can buy First-Class postage on Paypal and print labels from there.
Sounds like the CD I received in the mail once, in a plain envelope, with no jewel case, and no padding. More accurately, what I received was shards of a CD.
In general, an unpadded CD should make to you unscathed through the USPS - I've received hundreds of Netflix DVD's through the mail in their plain paper envelopes. I've received a few scratched and unplayable disks, but not a single broken disk.
If a CD needed padding or a jewel case to prevent significant numbers of them from being damaged, Netflix would be using padded envelopes.
Yeah, I use Netflix too, and I've only seen one cracked disc. But there, the envelope is just the right size and the disc is basically held in place inside. It might be easier to recognize that it's supposed to be rigid than if you just stick a disc in a letter envelope that's too big for it.
Only stupid people think a device that stores useful amounts of energy can be inherently "safe". Stupid people are dangerous! If you understand that energy storage has hazards, and take steps to understand and control those hazards, you can be perfectly safe.
Lithium Ion cells can burn or explode during the charging cycle or when shorted. This is simple fact, easily verified (don't breath the smoke!).
This is not normally a problem. In your laptop, the individual cells that make up the battery pack are connected with fusible links. These are basically very thin pieces of wire, that will melt at fairly low temperatures, that are glued to each Li-Ion cell.
When you are charging your battery pack, or if you foolishly short it out, the fusible links will melt before the Li-Ion cells have reached a high enough temperature to explode or burn. This will disconnect the cells from the power supply and/or short, so the battery pack will become instantly useless (instead of becoming a grenade or campfire).
If your lithium Ion battery pack in your laptop gets worse and worse for months or years and finally just won't hold a charge, it wore out normally. If one day it's just dead, with no warning at all, well your friend the fusible link probably saved your genitalia from laptop-induced cauterization.
The basic problem with this is that fusible links are not testable. You could test 99% of every batch, but you can't test the one in your laptop, because it's a one-use device like an explosive bolt.
But computer vendors have been very good about enforcing quality control on the Li-Ion packs they buy from battery vendors. If anyone's been hurt they've apparently been paid off handsomely, "Fight Club" style, and you can only see a few videos of spontaneously combusting laptops on the Intertubes. You're very unlikely to have your own mass-market laptop ever hurt you, basically because that's bad for business.
USPS has a different problem. Greedy bureaucrats cutting costs by hiring unskilled, ignorant monkeys to ship things. Gormless politicians creating workplaces that are dehumanizing and soul-destroying. The monkeys and dispirited humans who work in such places are quite likely to accidentally drive a metal object (think, forklift prong) deep into a pallet of Lithium Ion cells... and fusible links won't stop that short. And since it takes a while for a pallet of batteries to get into full blazing inferno mode, it could go unnoticed until well after the plane is off the runway.
Unless it's in the passenger compartment...
To fix USPS fire the director (he makes 5x what the president of the US does), then in a year if there's still problems fire the next guy at the top and keep working your way down until only people that actually do work are left.
This is a general approach that would work in almost all large organizations.
I say its the ratcheting up of protectionism against cheap imports.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yes, those bombs in the guise of a power source should stay in the passenger section where they belong!
Dealing with an incident in the passenger cabin is much easier than dealing with an incident in the cargo areas.
As an individual who has an APO address, I've looked into this a bit.
Lithium-Ion batteries are a potential hazard. Keyword here is potential. There are supposedly two reported incidents of a battery fire causing an aviation mishap.
This new USPS rule is being driven by an ICAO restriction on Lithium-Ion batteries being shipped as cargo on passenger airliners. USPS uses passenger cargo to move a lot of their parcels. If a battery catches fire in the cargo hold, the crew doesn't have much it can do to address it. This is the same reason spare batteries have to be in your carry-on, and are no longer allowed in checked bags. Hence, it would make sense to restrict the shipment of L-I batteries by Air.
That's not what this new rule does.
This rule bans ALL lithium, lithium-metal, and lithium-ion batteries from being shipped by ANY USPS method internationally. Surface movement is banned for no reason. Also of note, nearly all electronics have lithium/lithium-metal batteries. CR2032 or a similar battery is installed in just about everything with a built in clock. Many watches run on lithium batteries. I've never heard of a watch battery catching fire.
Overseas troops receive and send all mail from an APO/FPO address. USPS is the only carrier that can deliver to APO - no UPS, Fedex, DHL, etc. This ban is a defacto ban on all electronics shipments to/from overseas troops.
A short list of items banned: All PCs, including desktops and laptops/notebooks--even with the main battery removed, any digital music players, phones, tablets, all apple devices, all game consoles, most dvd players and other electronics, TVs, and pretty much anything "portable".
USPS will still happily ship an entire crate of laptop batteries for you on a US domestic pax flight, as the ICAO rule does not affect it.
posted as AC, because I'm a lurker who hates making accounts
-zG
Finally! I was looking for this comment.
Every time I fly I get asked if I have lithium batteries, and every time I reply "yes" and then go through all my electronic devices which use Lithium batteries (in one form or another).