Notebook · 5 min read
Dangerous Goods Containers: What You Actually Need
If your shed holds drums of chemical, jerry cans or anything with a diamond label on it, this one's for you.
Ordinary containers are brilliant at keeping weather out. Dangerous goods storage asks for the opposite skill too: keeping problems in. That's what a DG container is engineered for.
What makes a DG container different
The sump floor. Instead of marine ply, a DG unit has a bunded steel floor — a containment tray under removable grates. Spill a drum and the liquid pools in the sump instead of soaking into soil or running to a waterway. That single feature is what keeps sites compliant with Australian storage requirements.
Ventilation. Wall vents keep vapours from accumulating, which matters for anything flammable and everything a WHS auditor looks at.
Signage and segregation. Proper units take class placards, and larger operations often run separate units for chemical classes that can't share a roof.
Who actually needs one
More operations than you'd think: farms holding spray chemicals or drum fuel, workshops with solvents and oils, gas-field and mining contractors, transport yards, even councils and schools with chemical stores. If a spill from your current shed would end up in the ground, you're a candidate.
Sizes and setups
DG units run from compact 8ft stores (a walk-in chemical cabinet, effectively) through 10ft and up to 20ft high cube — including full side-opening versions where forklift access to every drum matters. Expect DG pricing to sit well above general purpose units; the engineering is the price.
Matching the unit to the requirement
The right unit depends on what you store, how much of it, and which DG class it falls under — and the penalties for getting that wrong are not small. Our honest advice: don't guess from a website, including ours. Call 0418 179 002 with your chemical list and quantities, and we'll match a compliant unit to the actual requirement. Dangerous goods units are a Sunstate specialty — we keep them in stock when most yards have to order them in.