How Shipping Containers Changed the World

It is believed that more than 20 million shipping containers ply the world’s oceans at any time. When they are not at sea, then you may see them turned into beautiful sheds, mansions, classrooms, or used to construct bridges. This just shows the versatility of shipping containers and the scope of application to which they can be subjected to. When you look at them now, you may think that they have been around forever. However, you will be surprised to learn that shipping containers are not even a century old.

The world before shipping containers

Before the advent of shipping containers, sea transportation was a very expensive affair and the final retail value of the goods made them unnecessarily expensive. The reason for transport at sea being expensive at this time was because it took a lot of time and effort to load and unload goods. It required physical manpower, and it could be days or even weeks before a fully loaded break bulk ship could be loaded or unloaded. Most ports also didn’t want to take in very large ships since they preferred the smaller ones that could be loaded and unloaded quickly.

It was not until 1956 when an American entrepreneur – Malcolm McLean, introduced shipping containers to the world. He came up with the idea of transporting cargo in fixed boxes which were then stacked onto ships. Shortly after, the United States went to war in Vietnam. The military discovered that it was easier and more efficient to transport hardware by sea, and the shipping containers were the right tool they needed to move all the bulky equipment. As the war went on, the world noticed the efficiency of the shipping containers, and since then, they have been here to stay.

How shipping containers have changed the world

One of the major differences that shipping containers brought to the world was to lower the cost of sea transportation. With the introduction of the shipping containers, the cost of moving goods plummeted. Before the containers, it would cost up to $420 to move a ton of goods across the Atlantic – a distance of about 3, 500 miles. Currently, the average cost of moving a similar quantity of cargo is $50. Containers also led to the use of mechanical loaders that replaced human labor that would take days or weeks to load ships. Currently, thousands of tons of cargo can be loaded or unloaded per hour, hence, greatly reducing the time ships have to take on the docks.

Development of container hubs

Before the invention of shipping containers, all we had were inner-city ports that could handle small cargo ships. The most you could find in these ports were dockside warehouses as well as multiple piers. However, these have become redundant owing to the construction of large container terminals that are designed with the infrastructure to handle thousands of containers all at the same time. Most of the popular shipping ports became run down and operated as yards for containers for sale or ship repairs, but this was until they sprouted back as classy waterfront developments.

Machines over human labor

Before shipping containers, loading and unloading cargo onto the breakbulk cargo ship was tedious, manual and took several days or weeks. It was done by hands, and it required the labor of thousands of longshoremen to get the job done. In port cities like New York, for instance, nearly 20% of the jobs were concentrated around the port, and the bulk of the workers were the longshoremen. With the advent of containers, however, there is a lot of mechanization in the port, and there is no longer any need for thousands of men to load and unload the ships. All that is required are tall and powerful cranes with the capacity to load and unload thousands of tons per hour. This has greatly improved the efficiency at the ports and also reduced congestion due to a reduced number of essential workers.

Incredible shipping capacity

Shipping containers have also gifted the world with incredible shipping capacity. A standard container ship, for instance, can carry about 9000 six-meter containers when it is fully loaded. This is an incredible capacity to ship large volumes of motor vehicle spare parts, electronics, clothing, utensils, machinery, and anything else you may wish to ship across the seas. If these containers were to be laid end-to-end, you could be looking at more than 80km of containers.

In 2018 alone, it is estimated that the world container terminals handled over 500 million containers which is  equivalent to over 2 billion tons of cargo. In Shanghai where we find the largest container port in the world, more than 30 million containers are handled every year. Before containers, the volume of cross-ocean trade was very small, but after the invention of containers, it has grown on an enormous scale. It is estimated that more than 90% of all goods traded across the globe are transported in containers. Shipping container prices have also gone down, making it possible for many people to get into the shipping business and move their goods across the globe.

Faster access to markets

Before containers, it could take days to load and unload cargo from the cargo ships. This also meant that the goods delayed reaching the market with a similar timeline. With containers as well as the investment in modern container terminals, tens of thousands of cargo can be loaded and unloaded per hour. This implies that goods will also reach markets faster.

Containers can be repurposed

Containers have a lifetime, and once they have served their life at sea, they don’t need to be disposed of as any other piece of junk. Conteneur SEA  offers shipping containers for sale. Contact us to find good containers to build good structures. It is possible to turn the shipping containers into offices, shops, sheds, houses, or even swimming pools. We have provided a low-cost option for those looking for affordable but sustainable means of constructing different structures.