What is Dangerous Goods Awareness Training and Who is it for?

Handling, storing or transporting dangerous goods comes with serious responsibilities. Whether you work in logistics, warehousing, manufacturing, retail distribution or transport, understanding how to identify and manage hazardous materials is essential for safety and compliance. In this blog, we’ll explain what is dangerous goods awareness training, what it involves, who needs it, and training options.

What Are Dangerous Goods?

Dangerous goods (also known as hazardous materials or hazmat) are substances or items that pose a risk to health, safety, property, or the environment. They are classified into nine hazard classes and include:

1. Explosives
2. Gases
3. Flammable Liquids
4. Flammable Solids
5. Oxidising Substances and Organic Peroxides
6. Toxic and Infectious Substances
7. Radioactive materials
8. Corrosives
9. Miscellaneous Dangerous Goods

Even if you don’t directly handle dangerous goods, you may still encounter them and require an awareness.

What is Dangerous Goods Awareness Training?

Dangerous goods awareness training provides a foundational understanding of:

• What dangerous goods are and how they are classified
• The risks associated with different hazard classes
• Labelling, marking and packaging
• Driver, vehicle and container requirements
• Documentation

Awareness-level training does not certify someone to declare or sign off dangerous goods shipments. Instead, it ensures employees understand the hazards, can recognise dangerous goods, and know when to escalate to a qualified person. Dangerous good awareness training builds safety awareness across the workforce.

Who Needs Dangerous Goods Awareness Training?

One of the biggest misconceptions is that only those directly handling dangerous goods need training. In reality, if you are in any way involved in the transport of dangerous goods, you should have training relevant to your job role. This may include:

• Warehouse staff
• Packers
• Sales personnel
• Administrators
• Drivers
• Leadership or management
• Purchasing or procurement teams
• Customer service teams dealing with shipping queries

Employers are responsible for ensuring that staff receive appropriate dangerous goods training relevant to their duties.

What Does Peter East’s Dangerous Goods Awareness eLearning Cover?

Peter East’s Dangerous Goods Awareness eLearning course is designed to provide high quality, clear, practical, and regulation-aligned training for individuals working in environments where dangerous goods are present. It contains video, animation and fully interactive real-world scenarios.

Accessible anytime, and delivered entirely online, the course enables learners to complete training efficiently without disrupting operations — making it ideal for busy logistics, warehousing and transport environments. Certificates are issued instantly on completion of the training.

You can learn more about the course here.

With flexible dangerous goods training online, organisations can protect their people, remain compliant, and build a stronger culture of safety — all without disrupting daily operations.

Watch our video below for a clip from the course.