Batterie al litio nei container: migliaia viaggiano senza dichiarazione

Lithium batteries in containers: thousands travel undeclared

SUNDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2026

La disposizione che esenta le piccole batterie non pone alcun limite a quante ne stanno in un container. Il World Shipping Council chiede all’IMO una soglia.

Lithium batteries in containers can travel by the thousand without anyone on board knowing. It is not an abuse: it is what the international rules currently allow, and next week the International Maritime Organization discusses whether to set a limit.

Lithium batteries in containers: what the rules allow today

The international code for the maritime carriage of dangerous goods contains a special provision, number 188, which exempts small batteries from some of the obligations set for dangerous goods. To qualify they must meet precise criteria on capacity, packaging and safety testing.

The exemption was created for a sensible reason: to simplify the shipment of individual devices containing a small battery — a phone, a watch, a toy. The point the World Shipping Council has raised is a different one: the provision sets no limit on the number of exempt batteries that can end up in the same container.

The result is that a load can consist entirely of exempt batteries, with no dangerous goods paperwork and no placards on the container. Those who load the ship, those who command it and those who respond in an emergency do not know that container is different from the others.

How much energy sits in one container

The association has translated the problem into a measurable example.

Container holding around 4,200 laptops: roughly 416 kWh of stored energy
Rough equivalent of the same load: three or four electric vehicles
Frequency of fires aboard container ships: one every seventeen days
Fires on vessels recorded in 2025: more than two hundred, the second-highest figure of the decade
Global lithium-ion battery deployment in 2025: six times the 2020 level, with demand expected to double by 2030

The last three figures come from insurance data on the maritime sector. It is worth reading them for what they say and for what they do not: they measure the frequency of fires and the growth in battery volumes carried, they do not establish what share of those fires is caused by undeclared batteries. The correlation is plausible and the industry argues for it, but the two figures remain distinct.

What is being discussed in London

The World Shipping Council has submitted a paper to the International Maritime Organization together with five governments — Germany, the Marshall Islands, the Netherlands, Singapore and Thailand — and other industry bodies, among them BIMCO and the International Chamber of Shipping.

The proposal is to set a maximum threshold of batteries in a single container, above which the shipment would have to be declared and possibly placarded. The sub-committee responsible for the carriage of cargoes and containers examines it in London from 14 to 18 September.

It is worth being precise about where things stand: this is a proposal under discussion, not an adopted rule. A threshold, if introduced, would then have to be set at a value and written into the code, with the time that entails. Nobody needs to change their procedures next week.

What to check now if you import products with batteries

The subject covers far more goods than one might assume: consumer electronics, cordless tools, small appliances, bicycles and scooters, medical devices, toys.

The first point is documentary. For every code containing lithium cells the supplier should be able to provide the test report required by transport rules, the one certifying the cell has passed the required tests. If they do not have it, the problem already exists today, regardless of how the discussion at the IMO ends.

The second concerns what is declared on your behalf. The transport declaration is filled in by whoever ships, often the supplier or their forwarder: asking for a copy of what was declared is a simple check and one rarely made.

The third is contractual, and worth looking at before it is needed. If a threshold were introduced, some shipments that are exempt today would become dangerous goods, with different stowage costs and loading constraints. Knowing in advance which of your codes would sit above that threshold is an exercise done once that stays valid.

With La Merce, shipping lithium batteries in containers means keeping on file the test report for every cell and a copy of the transport declaration, before a threshold under discussion in London makes them a condition for loading.