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Yup. Had to pack bat in a freezer ziploc and stick it in the freezer. Then when shipping, pack it in another freezer ziploc with paper towels (for moisture) and a blue ice pack (no dry ice).

After that, put in a box with a UN 3373 category B label affixed to it. Add contents list to the box as required by the label and after that drop off with your mail company of choice (UPS in our case).

Seems to be a common thing, no one bat an eye :)

Ooo, fancy. "Biological Substance"! I missed that USPS would classify this as infectious matter, which is where they're hiding that UN requirement.

Not an answer, but there was an excellent thread about this topic this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28210780

Is it any different from Omaha Steaks shipping you some frozen steaks and burgers? As long as your box doesn't leak or smell, nobody at USPS is going to open it.

Yes. Omaha Steaks conform to USDA regulations and are regulated under 55 Meats, rather than 52 Animals:

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_011.htm

However, there is 349.23 Dry Ice, which applies to any package using it, whether meat or animal or other:

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c3_027.htm#ep900096

Note that USPS also requires you to declare if a package contains Perishable or Hazardous goods, and label it clearly if it's being mailed under 52 Animals:

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c5_004.htm

If you fail to do so, they can in theory fine you or have you arrested — especially for failing to declare dry ice, which falls under Hazard Class 9, the "miscellaneous" class:

https://pe.usps.com/text/pub52/pub52c3_004.htm

"Anyone who mails, or causes to be mailed, a nonmailable or improperly packaged hazardous material can be subject to legal penalties (i.e., fines and/or imprisonment)"

and are regulated under 55 Meats, rather than 52 Animals

Talk about your "you must be fun at parties"; and this isn't necessarily directed at you, floatingatoll, but when I see comments like this I often wonder if it's a case of "memorizes USPS shipping rules for fun" or more likely "worked on a contract once where we had to codify USPS shipping rules into an application, so I don't have them memorized but sure as hell know where to look".

For example, I've written code for computers to consume for the vast majority of my career. But go ahead and ask me the finer points of cellophane manufacturing...please, I've been waiting years for it to come up in conversation.

The latter is closer than the former, but I’ve put in a lot of time reading postal regs and studying library classification over the years, so I can navigate their index pretty quickly, is all.

I would like to sign up for cellophane facts.

I, too, would like to hear stories about cellophane manufacturing.

Mike, you should hook up with The Prepared email newsletter and ask to be a guest author some week. They would be super excited to have you participate. :)

Man, tough crowd. One smart ass remark turns into writing a newsletter article. :-) In seriousness, I'll make an honest effort at seeing if I can come up enough interesting paragraphs, and then check The Prepared (a new one to me). Here's a preview of what I learned on my first day: cellophane is made from wood (which gets pulped, and broken down with nasty chemicals). I always assumed it was some kind of plastic. I was there to get them off that mainframe, but hung out with those on the floor when I could.

Depending on one's career path, though, I think we all collect little tidbits along the way that are way outside of the software craft. I was a partner in a consulting company back in the 90s, and we specialized in small-medium businesses. Anything from cellophane to auto body shops to mail-order jewelry (class rings and the like). It wasn't always interesting (see: mail-order jewelry), but my "TIL" moments were probably more frequent than any other time.

https://theprepared.org/newsletter-archive/2021-09-27

A post about cellophane would be perfect for this audience :)

Agreed -- I already subscribe to the Prepared and can vouch for their readers' acute interests in manufacturing technology.

To be honest, just dealing with this once can make you remember it for eternity.

For example, I know that if I want to declare a computer peripheral to the customs, there is a good chance to get the correct TARIC code in the chapter that literally starts with "Nuclear reactors"...

Like a lot of things in life, it probably falls under "don't ask, don't tell", probably with some dry ice thrown in for good measure.

Mailing dry ice without following proper procedures as you describe can result in you being fined or arrested by the postal service, especially if your unlabeled dry ice injures a postal worker. Please don't put human beings at risk for the sake of laziness in mailing. There are good reasons for the rules, even if they're frustrating.

I knew there would be a comment like this. Excuse my while my eyes roll several loops in my skull.

Yes, mailing stuff that requires labeling without those labels can get you in deep shit (because the feds don't really do shallow shit).

That doesn't mean everyone doesn't do it left and right.

Go buy some refrigerated food or medication off eBay and see how it ships. Heck, a certain country will ship you all manner of truly dangerous things in nothing more than a bubble wrap envelope.

The amount of dry ice required to refrigerate a bat (or tub of caviar, or niche cheese, or whatever) is easy to package safely. Throw it in a rag in a strofoam temp cooler. Do a non-terrible job boxing it up and it won't get out in any form other than as a gas.

This is one of the many cases where the behavior of the average individual is not in accordance with the law and (as 20+yr of eCommerce have shown us) nothing bad happens except in cases of exceptional stupidity.

I know that "but the law" and assumptions of stupidity of the general public make for easy points around here but neither complaint is materially relevant in this situation.

"Do a non-terrible job boxing it up and it won't get out in any form other than as a gas."

It sounds like you're assuming dry ice is only dangerous in terms of cold burns.

The gas, carbon dioxide, is dangerous as well. People have died transporting dry ice in a vehicle. CO2 isn't the most dangerous gas, but in an enclosed space like a delivery vehicle it can cause problems. A delivery service needs to consider the cumulative effects of all packages. Your dry ice package may not be the only one in a vehicle.

Individuals without experience are generally not capable of doing a thorough risk assessment, which is why regulations are so important.

Not disputing the dangers of CO2 in an enclosed space, but I'm going through my memory* of USPS/UPS delivery trucks, and not one of them have been enclosed. Sliding doors are always open. Semi-trucks are enclosed, yes, but humans are not in the enclosed areas.

*ymmv on your area

I'm sure driving with the doors open in many delivery trucks helps as well, but I'm just as sure there are vehicle configurations where air is circulated between both areas and/or share an enclosed space.

Keep in mind, this is also an aviation concern as well as loading/unloading. Resting in the backs of trucks on break, etc.

My son flies cargo for FedEx in a smallish (Cessna Caravan) regional plane. It's pretty enclosed.

*ymmv applies here

As seen elsethread, there is one single model of plane in the entire air cargo freight industry that's able to protect the humans onboard from the atmospheric exposure risks of dry ice, so technically that's still YMMV, but realistically it's not, and thus the FAA warning last December.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/dry-ice-the-russian-an-124...

There’s also air, sea, and rail transport to consider.

Again though, how many people are hanging out with the cargo in air/sea/rail transport?

Domestic air cargo flights typically have 2-3 crew members on board. They're inside the same pressure hull as the cargo; there's no barrier or filter. That's why dry ice must be declared and requires special handing for air transport.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/faa-issues-dry-ice-alert-t...

Does someone crawl into the cargo compartment to unload it the moment its door is opened? If that person got caught in a CO2 pool they could plausibly fall unconscious & at least start suffocating before coworkers noticed they were absent for too long.

Yes, people knowingly set aside safety guidelines for their personal convenience all the time. Many NTSB investigations end up saying “pilot apparently skipped pre-flight checklist”. As with all such things, it’s fine until it’s not, and when something does eventually go wrong (and it will), the blame will rest on your shoulders for taking safety shortcuts. So I choose not to gamble the safety of others to avoid having to label a package as Dry Ice, even if others take the gamble instead.

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