22 September, 2022 |

What are the requirements to run such a warehouse? What documents do you need to know? What else is worth knowing?

ADR warehouse

The term ADR warehouse has no legal source – it is not included in any act, but only used by practitioners. Nor is it found in one specific legal document that would regulate the storage and warehousing of dangerous goods.

In order to store dangerous goods, two problems must be tackled:

• building a secure warehouse
• safe organization of work and internal logistics.

An ADR warehouse is considered to be simply a warehouse where goods considered to be dangerous are stored. ADR is a term derived from French (French: L’Accord européen relatif au transport international des marchandises Dangereuses par Route), an abbreviation derived from the convention on the transport of dangerous goods by road.

Dangerous goods and fire-hazardous materials

Hazardous substances can be called those substances that may have a negative effect on the environment during storage, transport, loading, unloading, creating fire and explosion hazards, threats to human health or life, and the surrounding environment. Whether or not a substance is considered hazardous results from the relevant regulations. The classes of dangerous goods are regulated by the ADR agreement.

Separately, Polish regulations also distinguish fire-hazardous materials. You can read about them in the following legal acts:

• Regulation of the Ministry of Interior and Administration of April 12, 2002. on the technical conditions to be met by buildings and their location
• Regulation of the Ministry of Interior and Administration of April 21, 2006. on fire protection of buildings, other structures and areas

According to the second of the above-mentioned regulations, fire hazardous materials are understood as:

• flammable gases,
• flammable liquids with a flash point below 328,15 K (55 ° C),
• materials which, in contact with water, emit flammable gases,
• materials that ignite spontaneously in the air,
• explosives and pyrotechnics,
• spontaneously decomposing or polymerizing materials,
• materials prone to spontaneous combustion

Ordinance on the storage of hazardous substances

As mentioned above, there is no single legal act regulating the storage of hazardous substances. At the time of Poland’s accession to the European Union, the storage of hazardous materials was covered by two legal systems. On the one hand, these are EU regulations and agreements, and on the other – national regulations of a normative nature. For example, the ADR agreement in Annex A contains a breakdown of all hazardous materials produced in the world. This document is an international convention that applies to the carriage of dangerous goods and goods by road, drawn up in Geneva on September 30, 1957.

Check also in the previous article how ADR goods are transported.

Polish legal acts regulating the storage of hazardous substances

In the above paragraph there are regulations regulating the storage of fire hazardous materials.
If you want to store chemicals, it is also worth knowing the act on chemical substances and their mixtures.

Storage of non-standard materials

It often happens that it is necessary to store materials that are characterized by non-standard dimensions or high loads. Then what?

In case of heavy loads, shelf racks with pull-out shelves can be used. Such a solution is a very solid structure, thanks to which it is possible to store heavy elements. The shelves are embossed to prevent the goods from sliding off. Safety of use is improved by the lock against sliding out two shelves at the same time. Additionally, some racks can be equipped with higher frames, the upper parts of which are equipped with beams for suspending a manual chain hoist for lifting and lowering loads.

Cantilever racks are perfect for storing long items. The structure of the rack is determined by the height and weight of the goods. Hence, you can choose light, medium and heavy racks. Cantilever racks are also manufactured for the storage of very heavy longitudinal elements. The retractable brackets allow the racks to be operated with an overhead crane or a crane.