Dive Brief:

• The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that it’s recommending a $350,000 civil penalty against Amazon for allegedly violating hazardous materials regulations when it handed off a package containing a corrosive drain cleaner to shipping partner United Parcel Service.

• The Amazing! Liquid Fire brand cleaner leaked through its cardboard packaging en route from Kentucky to Colorado, requiring nine UPS workers to be treated with a chemical wash to ease chemical burning, the FAA said.

• The FAA alleges that Amazon did not properly package the shipment, failed to include a Shipper’s Declaration for Dangerous Goods and did not properly mark or label the shipment to indicate the hazardous nature of its contents. The FAA also claims that Amazon failed to provide emergency response information with the package and did not properly educate employees who handled the shipment on hazardous materials training.

Dive Insight:

“Amazon has a history of violating the Hazardous Materials Regulations,” the FAA stated Monday. “From February 2013 to September 2015 alone, Amazon was found to have violated the Hazardous Materials Regulations 24 other times. The FAA is continuing to investigate Amazon’s compliance with the Hazardous Materials Regulations applicable to air transportation.” The FAA gave no further details on those past violations.

Amazon defended its operations and said that it takes cargo safety seriously. “We ship tens of millions of products every day and have developed sophisticated technologies to detect potential shipping hazards and use any defects as an opportunity for continuous improvement,” the company said in a statement, according to Bloomberg. 

If Amazon has an issue with safety in packing, fulfillment and shipping, it could be the result of its relentless pursuit of efficiencies. That has garnered the online retail giant some bad press for its treatment of workers in its warehouses as well as in its corporate offices.

Beyond the pressure on workers for efficiencies, Amazon has also been bulking up its own shipping operations, investing in capabilities from trucks to plans and even apparently dabbling in international freight forwarding. 

That has led to speculation that Amazon may be working up to become a shipper itself, though the company and its rivals have all downplayed that notion, saying that there’s plenty of demand for fulfillment to go around as e-commerce continues to grow.

Speaking last month at the Recode conference, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reiterated that the company is not seeking to derail shipping partners like UPS and the U.S. Postal Service but to "heavily" supplement their delivery capabilities. "We're growing our business" with UPS and the USPS, Bezos said in an onstage interview.