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https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/royal-mail-lift-the-restrictions-on-shipping-water-based-paints

What is this?
Due to recent changes in their shipping restrictions, Royal Mail will no longer ship more than 4 pots of water-based paint per package, with each pot having a maximum volume of 150ml. Packages which breach this policy are identified by x-ray and then sent away to be destroyed. Repeat offenders will then be prosecuted.




Who does this affect?
There are a lot of people in the UK sending or receiving paints, whether for hobby or professional use, and policies like this are also restricting a variety of small businesses. Thousands of people order water-based paints every week, and we hope to gain enough support for Royal Mail to consider changing the restrictions on these items.


Why are these paints restricted?
We have spoken with various people about this, from Royal Mail themselves, through to the Department of Transport and the Dangerous Goods Office, and so far we have not been given a definitive reason as to why these restrictions exist. The Royal Mail allows shipping of alcohol of up to 1 litre in volume, even in glass bottles, yet five small pots of paint, less than 100ml total, would be against the restrictions. We are currently awaiting a reply from the Royal Mail Policy Team with more information on the restrictions, and whether a change is possible.


Should these paints be restricted?
We have provided Royal Mail with Material Safety Data Sheets from some of the more well-known manufacturers of paint, which show that these items are perfectly safe to ship. We will continue to collect evidence of this type and forward it to Royal Mail.


What is the aim of this petition?
Our initial aim is for a change to the policy to allow a larger volume of water-based paints to be sent in one package, a change to match the 1 litre maximum on alcohol would be ideal. Even an increase to 600ml total would be a great start. Many small businesses in the UK are having a very hard time at the moment, and lifting these restrictions would be a welcome boost to a lot of people.


What can I do?
First and foremost, we need people to register their support by joining the petition on Change.org. If you buy paints on a regular basis, please mention how many paints/occasions you are buying per year on average, as this will help us show the volumes of business RM is potentially missing out on.

If you are a manufacturer or seller of paints, please mention your company name as well.

Finally, please spread the word about this. We need to get the message out as far and wide as possible, so that we can gain enough support to make a difference. Please post it on any forums you frequent and any blogs you write, on your Facebook or your Twitter. The more coverage we can get, the more chance we've got of making a change, and then we can all get back to some painting!


Thanks for reading, your support is really appreciated.

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/royal-mail-lift-the-restrictions-on-shipping-water-based-paints

It does seem silly - also annoying since I liked having the UK as a viable source of hobby materials. Could only include 4 vallejo dropper bottles with my last Wayland order, wanted more and larger ones.

Yeah, having to order my Coat D'arms 4 bottles at a time would be a nuisance...

You can post/receive 600ml at a time if you read carefully. Gw will have to use a second party courier as they sell the ultimate paint set. Im sure if we message the company or person we are buying them from we could boycott the Royal mail.

Its not paint....its make-up for my action figures.

Good thing then that GW sends via UPS.

 Rickfactor wrote:
Its not paint....its make-up for my action figures.

good one!
On topic: I can only buy four paints at a time! Yay!!!!!!!! Seems very stupid..

Utterly pointless. Here in the UK we prohibit the posting of more than four pots of water based paint, but you can legally go out and buy everything you need to become a local drugs dealer.

I'm in, I prefer buying paints in bulk, especially if I suddenly have a completely new scheme to paint, and none of the paints I need.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/564383.page

As already noted by Red in the other thread just linked, a thread in both N&R and P&M due to the subject matter seems appropriate. A rare occurrence to be sure, but a valid one is this case.

Cakie wrote:
You can post/receive 600ml at a time if you read carefully. .

It's also limited to 4 items. So it's only going to be 600ml if each item is the maximum 150ml allowed. 4 x 18ml bottles of paint are still going to hit the '4 items' limit.

This is mostly a non issue. Online retailers (atleast in my own experience) rarely use Royal Mail... in favour of just about any courier service.
Royal Mails service is really lacking in comparrison, and their prices are really high for the level of service that they offer. Theyve been getting blown away by all the private logistics companies for a while now.

Any retailers that used to use RM... of which I don't think I know any, will just swap to a courier service.

Just last week I had 20pots of VMA, 200ml vallejo primer and 200ml vallejo thinners all in one box delivered by 'Interlink Express' and their tracking service was the best I've ever seen;

I could see how many drops the driver had, and what number I was, and the location of the van on google maps and it updated every few minutes. They showed up when they said they would, when the tracking said they were here too. Couldnt fault it tbh.
My shipping was free because of the size of my order (which was only about £50 ...small fish for most hobby related purchasing - especially where GW products are concerned!)

So I don't actually imagine Royal Mail refusing to ship x amount of paint being an issue, they weren't doing it before anyway?

Random data point : I shipped some paints to myself on vacation this summer (didn't want any TSA hassles). On the way back, the lady at the post office (US mail) said "oh are those acrylic paints? you can't ship those internationally." I wasn't actually shipping them internationally, but she may have been assuming I was shipping them up to Canada.

In any case, I thought it was weird, so I asked "Really? Why's that?". She didn't really know, just knew it was in the rules. It's difficult to imagine what acrylic paint (of all things) could possibly do during shipping. It's one of the most inert materials in the world. Maybe because some acrylics have some of the "scary metals" in them, like Cadmium?

Still seemed pretty baffling to me. Maybe some kind of archaic old rule from back in the day?

HairySticks wrote:
This is mostly a non issue. Online retailers (atleast in my own experience) rarely use Royal Mail.

Pretty sure all the packages I get from Wayland, SnM stuff, Maelstrom in the past and so on to Australia are royal mail, as are the ebay auctions I've won from the UK.

So I don't actually imagine Royal Mail refusing to ship x amount of paint being an issue, they weren't doing it before anyway?

When they say they're going to destroy packages that don't follow their rules, I'm going to err on the side of caution and follow their rules.

Thanks for the support so far, it's really appreciated, and to hit 1200 signatures in the 1st 24 hours is fantastic.

To answer some queries raised, there are a lot of companies still using RM for their paint deliveries, due to the costs involved in courier services. It might not be too bad for the big boys, who can get bigger discounts due to the volume of packages they are sending out, but a lot of smaller companies, eBay sellers, and guys on Amazon are sending through RM still.

Also, many of the courier companies have similar restrictions in place, or use RM at some stage of their delivery, so still have to abide by the policy.

 Yonan wrote:

HairySticks wrote:
This is mostly a non issue. Online retailers (atleast in my own experience) rarely use Royal Mail.

Pretty sure all the packages I get from Wayland, SnM stuff, Maelstrom in the past and so on to Australia are royal mail, as are the ebay auctions I've won from the UK.

So I don't actually imagine Royal Mail refusing to ship x amount of paint being an issue, they weren't doing it before anyway?

When they say they're going to destroy packages that don't follow their rules, I'm going to err on the side of caution and follow their rules.

My package of VMA was from SnM stuff. They used Interlink Express, and shipping was free. This was literally last week...when did this RM shipping restriction come into effect?
I suspect that they just used another method, and that no difference was perceived by the customer (except of course the vastly superior tracking and delivery service)

The rules include a line about having a return address clearly shown on the package. I can also imagine that theyre talking about things that breach the terms for number of items, or size of items, aswell as having no return address would be destroyed as it is just an ongoing cost to RM to store them indefinitely.
If your package is destroyed, its the senders fault for sending them something that breaches the terms and conditions. Retailers could find themselves having to re send things at their own expense. But honestly I really just expect them to use couriers, like SnM Stuff (that you mentioned)

HairySticks wrote:
But honestly I really just expect them to use couriers, like SnM Stuff (that you mentioned)

Courier delivery costs more than mail when mail service is has always been fine for what we need - until this new regulation. Which is why we're trying to get rid of it.

HairySticks wrote:
This is mostly a non issue. Online retailers (atleast in my own experience) rarely use Royal Mail... in favour of just about any courier service.

International Couriers are prohibitively expensive. Most retailers still use RM for overseas deliveries.