By Andy Altemos, Senior Technical Advisor

The United Nations (UN) Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (TDG) approved wide-ranging changes to the upcoming Sixteenth Revised Edition of the UN Recommendations, to be published in mid-2009.  The amendments will be implemented in international modal transport regulations (such as the IMDG Code, ADR/RID, and ICAO Technical Instructions) and various national regulations, including the US Hazardous Materials Regulations, on or about 1 January 2011.

Decisions of the TDG fell into three general categories:

“fine tuning” of amendments tentatively adopted by the TDG Sub-Committee at prior sessions in the 2007/2008 biennium.;
consideration of proposals discussed earlier but not concluded, and consideration of new proposals; 
action on administrative matters, such as development of the future work program and the election of officers for the 2009/2010 biennium of work. 

A summary of the TDG discussions and actions relating to these three basic areas of work follows.

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