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Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate

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Re: Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate

#41

Post by wongarsu »

dataflow wrote: post #32

Are there no environmental concerns here? I'm kind of confused why no one seems to mention anything about that.

3000 containers/year is a pretty small drop in the ocean. Most dangerous chemicals that you don't want in the ocean are loaded in a way that they are surrounded by other containers, so they are less likely to fall off (and less likely to be shot by pirates and catch fire). It seems reasonable to assume that the vast majority of the sinking containers are filled with pretty harmless stuff

Re: Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate

#42

Post by ineedasername »

pchristensen wrote: post #20
shoo wrote: post #10

To anchor discussion, prior to the rise of intermodal shipping containers in the '60s & '70s, cargo was shipped as breakbulk cargo. Losses from theft and damage were considerably reduced by switching from breakbulk cargo to shipping containers. Not the same as losing stuff over the side, but still a regular and somewhat predictable expense. One anecdote I remember from Levinson's book is about a scottish whisky disti…

The Box is way more fascinating than it has any right to be. It touches on basically every aspect of post-1950 world economy, history, urban planning, social changes, migration, etc.

Yes, absolutely. It absolutely hammered home for me the extreme value potential of even (seemingly) small logistical changes.

It reminds me of a quote about warfare: "Amateurs talk about strategy and tactics. Professionals talk about logistics"

Re: Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate

#43

Post by dylan604 »

throwaway316943 wrote: post #23
superfamicom wrote: post #13

Is there a list of what exactly was lost? Does anyone actively seek out and salvage this sunken treasure? I hate to think of another Garfield Phone thing in the future with something more dangerous. https://time.com/5561165/garfield-phones-france/

Somewhere there is a container full of Amazon Basics Butt Plugs waiting to spill forth its rubbery contents upon unsuspecting American beaches.

In Houston, we call that a Tuesday

Re: Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate

#44

Post by chrisco255 »

bpodgursky wrote: post #40
chrisco255 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The U.S. was founded on a war with its primary trading partner.

Well, alternatively, the war was (in large part) triggered by Britain _restricting_ open trade via the stamp act / granting a monopoly on tea imports to a single company.

The stamp act was a tax, not a restriction, right? Britain was attempting to recoup losses from the French-Indian War if I'm not mistaken. And the colonists had no say in it and then realized that even after lobbying for years to remove it (hell, the U.S. sent Benjamin Franklin, the best statesman in history and even he couldn't get them to budge), that they would always be subservient to the Crown. The tea imports was just salt on the wound.

Re: Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate

#45

Post by ineedasername »

donw wrote: post #21
shoo wrote: post #10

To anchor discussion, prior to the rise of intermodal shipping containers in the '60s & '70s, cargo was shipped as breakbulk cargo. Losses from theft and damage were considerably reduced by switching from breakbulk cargo to shipping containers. Not the same as losing stuff over the side, but still a regular and somewhat predictable expense. One anecdote I remember from Levinson's book is about a scottish whisky disti…

I've taken an interest in learning more about both the history of logistics, as well as modern practices. Any more links (books or otherwise) you could share?

There's been a fair bit written about how Walmart leveraged incredible logistics to achieve its retail dominance, not unlike Amazon doing the same in the online world. I've also come across interesting work on how Dell helped change consumer computing with Just in Time supply chains.

Re: Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate

#46

Post by brobinson »

xiphias2 wrote: post #11

I see ships being overloaded a good problem to have. The more countries trade with eachother, the less reason they have to fight wars with eachother.

Unfortunately, this has never been true to my knowledge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion

Re: Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate

#49

Post by bpodgursky »

chrisco255 wrote: post #44
bpodgursky wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, alternatively, the war was (in large part) triggered by Britain _restricting_ open trade via the stamp act / granting a monopoly on tea imports to a single company.

The stamp act was a tax, not a restriction, right? Britain was attempting to recoup losses from the French-Indian War if I'm not mistaken. And the colonists had no say in it and then realized that even after lobbying for years to remove it (hell, the U.S. sent Benjamin Franklin, the best statesman in history and even he couldn't get them to budge), that they would always be subservient to the Crown. The tea imports w…

Yeah, the Tea Act was the monopoly grant. The Stamp Act was just a tax.

Re: Shipping containers are falling overboard at a rapid rate

#50

Post by elihu »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #36
guynamedloren wrote: post #5

No mention of recovery. I wonder.. are the containers ever recovered, or is it prohibitively expensive, or, logistically near impossible?

I wonder if someone can make a living recovering these containers and selling their contents on eBay (considering it seems everyone treats the fallen off container as litter..).

From the article, it seems that container losses don't generally happen one at a time, but rather you have some event where a ship loses hundreds at once. I guess if you're quick maybe you could get a ship in and scoop them up before they sink, but in order to save more than a few you'd need a big ship and most of the time you'd just be sitting around waiting for the next container loss event, and the ship would sit idle for months or years.

I'm assuming that if it sinks in deep water it's gone, but even there maybe there's an opportunity to salvage containers off the sea floor with the right equipment. Probably not worthwhile economically, but who knows?

Maybe the best case for this could be made for ships that normally at sea doing other things to be ready to divert from their ordinary tasks to collect containers if they don't have anything more pressing. (Coast Guard ships or Navy support vessels perhaps?)

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