Everyone will know what a shipping container looks like, as they are a common sight on the back of lorries, stacked up at ports, and in city centres converted into trendy shopping hubs. They are the means by which goods are transported all around the world.
However, the pandemic has disrupted the shipping industry, as it has with every other industry and aspect of our lives, and a shortage of shipping containers has caused huge delays, and may even impact your Christmas shopping this year. You might have to wait a little longer for that PlayStation 5.
But how did shipping containers come to be?
In the 1950s, US shipping magnate Malcom McLean had become frustrated with the speed of shipping and formed his own shipping company to move goods up and down the US eastern seaboard a little faster.
Within a decade, the containers he used for shipping had become standardised, and the first international container ships set across the Atlantic, carrying guns to Europe, and returning to America with Whisky.
Shipping in barrels, bags, boxes and crates was slow and unreliable, and the containers helped streamline shipping operations, which today moves millions of nearly identical containers full of an unimaginable miscellany of goods each year.
Standard ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) shipping containers are 8ft (2.43m) wide, 8.5ft (2.59m) high and come in two lengths; 20ft (6.06m) and 40ft (12.2m). Extra tall shipping containers called high-cube containers are available at 9.5ft (2.89m) high.
There are also smaller 10ft (2.99m) and 8ft (2.43m) containers, but they cannot be shipped in the same way as 20ft and 40ft containers.
A standard 20ft shipping container has a capacity of 33.1 cubic meters, which is enough room to carry nearly 100 washing machines!
The containers can also be modified to suit a who range of purposes, for example, insulated or refrigerated containers for shipping food, containers with doors at either end or along the side, and even containers with removable roofs to allow easy transport of grains and other loose goods.
If you’re looking for sea freight forwarding services, talk to us today.
