[NHCOLL-L:2943] RE: Carosafe

[Simmons, John E]

I agree, the amount of ethanol would be infinitesimally small, however,
those are the regulations.  In my opinion, you probably could ship
ethanol preserved specimens in glycol without anyone finding out, but I
am not going to recommend that in a message posted to a listserv for
obvious reasons.  The regulations were not written to cover museum
specimens, they were written to address other, bigger hazards, but we
unfortunately fall under them.  The fines you face if caught are very
steep.  We have been told here that if we do not follow the regulations
and are caught, we can expect no support from the university at all.

 

I still wouldn't want to put my specimens in glycol for any reason.

 

--John

 

________________________________

From: John Early [mailto:jearly at aucklandmuseum.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2006 7:48 PM
To: Simmons, John E; gregory.watkins-colwell at YALE.EDU;
nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: [NHCOLL-L:2941] RE: Carosafe

 

John

 

>then using propylene glycol won't help, because you still have the
issue a solid (the specimen) that has absorbed the flammable (alcohol).>

 

Would  this really be an issue?  It's difficult enough to get 70%
ethanol to ignite so the risk presented by a 70% ethanol soaked specimen
surrounded by inert propylene glycol seems an infinitesimally small risk
to me, and the postal authorities/couriers need only know about the
glycol.

 

Regards,  John

 

John Early

Manager Natural History and Curator of Entomology 
Auckland War Memorial Museum 
Private Bag 92018, Auckland, N.Z. 
telephone +64 9 306 7042 
fax +64 9 306 7091 

 

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